Triumph Over Tragedy
by Ice Spectre
Summary: Batman is away in Rio... and Tim Drake is hoping for a quiet winter. The Joker has other plans, though, and Robin gets his trial by fire, facing alone the man who killed his predecessor.
1. Prologue

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004.

_Author's Note: I do not own the characters, I do not own the story. This is an ADAPTATION of a comic book series called "The Joker's Wild." It was compiled into a trade paperback comic book titled "Tragedy and Triumph." I have added some dialogue, TONS AND TONS of narration, and a several completely original scenes. But the story, and the characters, do not belong to me, it was written for DC Comics by Chuck Dixon. **I am just the novella adapter.**_

Rated PG

* * *

**"TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Prologue**

There are some creatures in this world that decent society would rather not see. Monsters the world tries to ignore. The twisted, the misguided, the sick, the diluded, the dangerous. There's a place for just such outcasts. Arkham Asylum, the house that hate built.

A smoky haze hung stagnant in the air of the crowded little office, an office comprised of mahogany, dim lighting, deep red-brown leather chairs, green banker lamps, and an enviable library of medical and psychiatric books on floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The smoky haze was compliments of a large cigar in the mouth of Assistant Director Jameson, a tall black man whose hair was graying over the ears. Jameson was sitting in a soft high-backed brown leather swivel chair, ankle crossed over knee, managing miraculously not to crinkle his dark gray-green suit in his comfortable position. His chair was pressed up against a little end table, which was sandwiched by a slightly different color and style leather swivel chair. The table in between crippled the chairs from swiveling, but they could do plenty of leaning back and squeaking. Jameson was doing a lot of squeaking.

Attorney Strenstrom could not seem to keep his seat. He had been sitting just a moment ago, but now he was on his feet like a soapbox had grown under him. Strenstrom was a tall, thin man, and his suit hung on him like it would on a hanger. His fists were planted firmly on his hips, curtaining back his suit jacket. The lines pressed into the front of his pants were perfect, right to the tiny crinkle just above the ankle that suggests a perfectly tailored length. His squinty eyes were narrowed beneath his thick, round-rimmed glasses. His pepper-gray hair was beginning to recede ever so slightly on one side.

"Just what is this all about, Mister Strenstrom?" Jameson rocked and squeaked. He was feigning severity. Everyone present knew him to be somewhat sympathetic to Strenstrom's cause. Jameson would be easily won over.

"This is madness, that's what this is about!" Director Malwitz interrupted, shouting from his worn pacing pattern in the narrow strip between the back of his desk and the window. A short but strong-looking man, Malwitz had become used to the necessity of enforcing his own word. His wavy blonde hair and relative youth compared to his present company served to make him seem more indignant. His thin mustache, grown to costume his lack of age, was too blonde to do much good in its present purpose. Malwitz lost his professional front and began cursing and muttering under his breath. "The Joker can have visitors, he says! Absolutely out of the question! Thinks the Joker's some kind of clear thinking person! His mother! Huh! Psycho probably doesn't even _have_ a mother!"

"Mister Malwitz," Strenstrom stretched out the words like a grammar school teacher, "What this is _about_ is The Joker's rights as an American citizen."

Malwitz stopped pacing and stared out the large picture window behind his desk into the darkness and snow. "_God_, you lawyers are all alike, Strenstrom."

"The man has a right to see his mother on his birthday," Strenstrom answered defensively, and a bit testily.

"Like the man said," Jameson backed the director once more for good measure, "we weren't even aware The Joker had a mother until we received her letter."

Strenstrom didn't have a reply for that. It didn't really need one.

"The Joker is the most dangerous inmate we have in here," Malwitz turned from the window and glared directly into Strenstrom's eyes. "The list of directors who have lost this office simply because of his escapes is legion. Nothing is sacred to him, not his goals, not his cohorts, not even Harley Quinn. And I strongly suspect, not his mother. He will use any tiny thing, any spark of interest or hope someone shows in him, and turn it to his psychotic schemes. And you work with your pet psychiatrists and every liberal do-gooder in the state to offer him another shot at getting out of Arkham."

"It is my opinion," Jameson, who had been biding his time all along and finally the moment was right for his genius revelation, spoke slowly and calmly, "that The Joker can only benefit from this contact with his mother. It's therapeutic for him. The letter we received stated that the woman wants to redress the issues of the abuses to her son as a child."

"That monster never was a child! I'm sick to death of all this psycho- babble crap!" Malwitz took a second to compose himself and measure his breaths. Compromise was necessary here. "He'll get to see his mother. But it will be on my terms."

End of discussion.

* * *

"We're running her through the metal detector now, sir," a guard reported to Malwitz.

Malwitz nodded absently. He was too busy concentrating on the strange little old woman who claimed to be The Joker's mother. He had to keep his hands in his pockets to keep from biting on his nails. His nervousness would have been made obvious by such an agitated gesture, and anything like that can set The Joker's evil mind to work. He stared at the woman.

She was tall and ridiculously thin, just like the Joker. She was wearing a purplish pink dress, a matching pillbox hat with a black veil covering her entire face, and large, clunky black shoes with a wide, short heel. She carried a black leather-covered Bible.

"She's clean," someone called. Malwitz didn't look to see who said it. The door from the cell block opened. The Joker was being brought in.

The Joker was no new sight for Malwitz, but seeing the sick, twisted man up close never failed to give him the creeps.

Joker's hair had grown in a bit too much and it hung in long green strands past the point of his stark white nose. He wore that huge, ridiculous grin, and leered out from beneath those tortured eyebrows. His arms were wrapped around him in a tight straight-jacket. His pants were the typical purple with black pin stripes, and his shoes were purple and black saddle shoes, buffed to a bright sheen. Little, the wardens had decided, could be done with a shoe rag and some black polish - so he'd been permitted them.

"Well, Strenstrom," Malwitz sighed as the Joker was seated at the empty wooden table, "you got what you wanted. The Joker is to be reunited with his mother."

Strenstrom smiled.

"I only hope you'll take full responsibility for what happens as a result of this little experiment," Malwitz added, snarling at the lawyer.

"And what could possibly happen?" Strenstrom spoke to him out of the corner of his mouth, as if they were watching a ballgame, and couldn't turn their faces from the spectacle. "You've got an army of guards in and around this room, which is sealed tight anyway. I think that's quite enough to control a straight-jacketed man and an octogenarian."

"I pray to God you're right, Strenstrom," Malwitz could not turn his face away, either, "I just pray to God you're right."

"Mother..." The Joker's high tenor voice, dripping with a slight British accent (purely for effect), seethed through his teeth.

"Son," the croaking old voice, almost lower in pitch than her son's, barely managed to utter the words, "I wanted to bring you something to comfort you in these troubled times."

"What is it, Mother?" the Joker seemed sarcastic when calling the woman mother. Malwitz wondered offhand if that was because he harboured so much hatred for the woman.

"The Good Book, son," the woman passed the Bible to The Joker.

Suddenly, Malwitz had a sinking. "Did you examine the Bible?" he hissed over his shoulder to one of the guards.

"Huh?"

"The **_BIBLE_**!!!" Malwitz shouted, not certain in retrospect if he had cried a reiteration or a warning. Green gas began to seep from the book, then rapidly pour out, flooding the room and downing two of the guards. Malwitz didn't know if it was knock out gas or if it was lethal. At this point, it didn't make much difference. The Joker would cause plenty of deaths to make up for any lives salvaged today if he escaped. The Joker had a gas mask on, and the Bible lay on the table, open. It was not a book at all, but a box in which a gas mask could be stored.

"Idiots..." Malwitz choked, tears coursing down his cheeks. He charged towards the door and shoved it open, breathing clear air. The moment he thought he could see again, he was bowled over by the woman who had claimed to be The Joker's mother. And quickly behind her was the Joker himself, who stepped on Malwitz's neck, holding him down till he could make good his escape. Malwitz leapt to his feet in time to see the Joker, sans straight-jacket, running free. And Malwitz had opened the door for him!

"Get him!" Malwitz croaked, though he wasn't sure who would be conscious or alive to hear him.

A heavyset, middle-aged guard appeared from the green smog of the room, holding a handkerchief over his mouth with one hand and bearing The Joker's empty straight-jacket in the other. "He got free!" the guard's muffled voice emanated from under the handkerchief.

"There he goes!" cried a young guard, standing at the ready with his rifle cocked. "I got him!" the guard took aim. His hands were shaking as he sited The Joker. None of the guards could see very clearly yet, the gas was still affecting their eyes. The young guard was a newbie at Arkham, and had never shot anyone in his entire life. He was about to take a life. And he was about to save countless innocent lives. He pulled the trigger. And heard the echoes and ricochets of a shot that had hit no one at all. He missed!

"Don't sweat it, Murphy," another guard stood at the ready behind the young guard who had flubbed the shot, "I got him covered! Get down!"

The older guard shoved Murphy to his hands and knees in the snow. Suddenly, shots exploded just over Murphy's head. The young man clamped his hands over his ears and saw shells fall onto the thin layer of snow near him, melting all the snow around them. About 300 feet away, he saw a tall, thin man in purple pin-striped pants go down.

Malwitz was already running towards the fallen man. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a guard tackle the old woman. Her pillbox hat fell off, revealing short black hair and stubble. A man! It was a man! How could they have been so stupid? The man in the dress gave the guard a nice uppercut to the jaw and escaped.

But Malwitz did not let the cross-dressing accomplice hold his attention for long. There, on the ground, blood soaking a thin V-necked undershirt, was Strenstrom. Strenstrom, half dressed in the Joker's clothing, was dead. Whether Strenstrom had willingly traded places with the Joker or was forced into it would have to be determined by forensics - if it could be determined at all.

"D-Did I...Did I get him, sir?" the guard who had helped Murphy approached slowly with Murphy trailing timidly behind.

"Good lord, man..." Malwitz stared as one of the guards turned Strenstrom over. His eyes were mercifully closed, but his jaw hung open. Yes, dressed in the purple suit, he would have been a dead ringer for The Joker. Now he was just dead. To The Joker, nothing is sacred. Not even the lawyer who gave him his freedom.

After long moments, the guard who had inadvertently shot Strenstrom brought himself to speak. "Should we lock down, sir?"

"What's the use, now?" Malwitz half-whispered. "He's long gone. He's a problem for the police, now."

* * *

"You guy I am to be waiting for?" the cabby asked with a thick foreign accent. He stood outside his cab, shivering. He had been waiting for a bit too long in the cold, but someone had paid him quite well to wait here.

"I'm the guy everybody is waiting for!" The Joker spread his arms wide, sporting Strenstrom's tailored suit.

"Sure, sure," the cabby blew him off, hurrying into the driver's seat of his heated taxi. He just hoped this weirdo didn't have to go far. "Got suitcase in here for you. Somebody give with fare."

The Joker folded his tall frame into the back seat. Next to him lay the suitcase. "Somebody" was Strenstrom. Good ol' Strenstrom. Laid down his life for The Joker. It was either risk his life, or lose his career, reputation, and ex-wife. Some choice.

"Where you go?" the cabby asked, settling into his seat and pulling the car into gear.

"Take me where the lights are bright!" The Joker slid down in the seat, crossing ankle over knee and lacing his fingers behind his head. "Take me to Gotham!"

* * *


	2. Just A Kid

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

_Author's Note To Herself: When writing for comics, be prepared to learn LOTS and LOTS of onomotopoeia._

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Just A Kid**

My first solo in the city. My test line is pulled taut as I swing over 29th Street. The snow is falling more heavily now, and it's freezing out here. The snow is powdery, and every surface I can possibly stand on, including roofs, ledges, and awnings, is coated with ice. Black ice. The kind you can't see until you've slipped on it.

It's strange to be on patrol without Batman here with me. Strange, and a little scary. The roof of the building I'm aiming for is covered with a thin layer of ice and a thick layer of snow. Landing in this is not going to be easy. I aim for an area where a skid will not take me over the edge. I slide a little, but not much. Some powdery snow spills over the edge of the building and I'm wondering what the heck I'm doing up here. Gotham is expecting a real cold winter. Bruce is in Rio by the Sea-o, lucky dog, and I'm cold and wet and tired and wearing green tights. Swift.

A plow/sander is working in vain on 28th Street. The ice is way too thick, there's no way the plow can get down to the surface of the street. And besides, there's not a car in sight. This cold is keeping everyone inside, even the criminal element. It's almost eleven, and nothing has happened yet. I might as well meet Alfred with the van and head home. Nothing will happen tonight.

Shut my mouth. The reddish-black city skyline is cut through by a yellow beam that begins a slow sweep across the sky. I know what it is without even looking at it. I look anyway. The Batsignal. And no Batman to answer it. Great. Well, looks like they'll have to settle for my half of the Dynamic Duo. I really wish I were going home and into my soft, warm bed. But before I can find a solid argument against doing just that, my batarang is wrapped around an icy gargoyle's neck, and I'm off to police headquarters. I'm not far from there now, anyway.

I land solidly on a low bank's rooftop. A successful swing even on an icy gargoyle. Hey, that was pretty good... I should be there in no time flat. So much for that early night.

Gordon is alone on the roof of police headquarters, behind the signal, away from the blaring light. His trench coat is fluttering around his knees, his arms are folded, his head is ducked. His white hair is whipping in the wind. I land on the roof beside him, falling to a full crouch to absorb the drop, then standing. Before I even finish that maneuver, Gordon comments on the absence of my partner.

"You're alone? Where's Batman?"

Why did I know he was going to ask me that? "He's been called out of town. You'll have to settle for me, Commissioner." I'm out here busting my butt for the city and all I get is a _Where's Batman_. I'll ignore that, though. "What's the problem?"

Gordon is shaking his head. "I was expecting Batman. It's just--"

"Well I'm sure I can handle whatever it is," I interrupt him. Gordon gets that quietly expectant look, that look that tells me I better have a good point to interrupt him like that. But tonight it seems only half-hearted. I wonder why? I probably shouldn't have done that, but I'm feeling defensive. I get enough flack for being the Dark Knight's Not-So-Dark Squire. I don't need it from him. The old model of the Robin costume has even been called Batman's decoy, all bright yellow and green and red, attracting attention, while Batman hides in the shadows dressed in all black and navy. At least I have a full-length cape that's black on the outside or I'd start to think that rumor was true. "Batman can't be everywhere at once."

"It's not that simple..." Gordon's back is to me. He won't look at me. I'm standing behind him with my arms spread wide, trying to get him to turn around, to confess to me, to trust me. What's the problem here? "It's more than--"

"Look, I can't help you if you won't--"

"It's The Joker. He escaped from Arkham two hours ago."

My eyes widen and a feeling not unlike a hot flash creeps through me.

"Whoa..." I breathe. The Joker is the worst psycho Batman has ever come up against. I've never seen him in person, and certainly never fought him. And Batman's come close to buying it dozens of times against Joker. I can't take him alone. I feel foolish for being so egotistical and confident with the Commissioner. But I had no idea...

"I'll do what I can, Commissioner," my voice is barely a whisper.

* * *

Gordon turned to look at Robin. The boy was only just above five feet tall, and had probably just hit fourteen years old. His figure was thin, but strong. His mask gave his eyes a steely edge that Gordon suspected was there without the mask, anyway. His jet-black hair was very short in the back, long in the front, a popular style with teenagers nowadays. Gordon had learned not to wonder who Batman really was anymore, but now when he looked at this boy, he couldn't help but wonder who Robin was. Some kid who had just promised to do what he could to defeat The Joker.

Maybe he wasn't giving this kid enough credit. This was not a typical teenager's job. This wasn't flipping burgers, delivering newspapers. No parent would sign working papers for this job. No one who cared about this boy would allow him to do this. Didn't he have anyone to care about him?

Maybe he was selling the Boy Wonder short. Maybe he really did have the inner strength, the training, the endurance, the wits to take The Joker. The Joker.

Gordon sighed and glanced at the ground. He turned his back to Robin to looked out over the city and nodded his head. Almost as if he were giving Robin permission. He didn't know if he wanted to take responsibility for what might happen to him.

"Kid, if you happen to hear from Batman," Gordon turned back around, "would you--"

The boy was gone.

"Damn! How do they do that?" Gordon kicked at some snow on the roof. His anger was mostly because of Batman's absence at such a critical time, not Robin's quick and silent (and typical) disappearance. He was certain that the request he had been about to make of Robin went without saying. He was going to ask Robin to bring Batman home. He knew that if Robin could, he would. But then, why did Robin seem so stunned, as if getting a hold of Batman would be almost impossible? As if he had just been sentenced to death, and all alone? Gordon knew that this Robin was not Batman's first partner. There had been others to bear that name. Or else this kid is Peter Pan and never grows up. Gordon had made it a point, though, not to look too deeply into these things. He didn't want to know who Batman and Robin really were. But he couldn't help wondering whatever happened to the other Robin or Robins, however many there had been. He knew that at least one had been killed. Batman had told him that much. How many more would die at the hands of The Joker?

* * *

I can hear the hiss of the two ton test line spiraling around the flagpole and the satisfying _klank_ of the 'rang that anchors the line. I've done this swing a thousand times. Police headquarters is a regular stop for Batman and me.

...and Batman's weight will not be on the outside of this pole. And there will be plenty of ice coating it. My swing is instinctive, but my swing was always with Batman on the outside of the pole. I'm going to fall.

I hear my rope sliding off the end of the pole. There's a big brass knob at the end of the horizontal flagpole, so if the line doesn't unravel...

It unravels. I hear the _ssshhhh-kkng!_ of the line losing all purchase on anything whatsoever. I'm freefalling into an alley. Luckily, I'm only about twenty feet off the ground. I've taken jumps from this height and higher before, but I always had time to prepare for it, and I was never coming in at such a weird angle. My mind is racing trying to figure out how to land so I will be in the least amount of pain possible.

I can roll with it.

My right foot hits the ground and my knee gives out. I fall to the right -- my angle was way too wide on that swing. I'm falling too fast to slow myself down with my hands. My right hip and shoulder take a majority of the impact. I fling out my left arm and leg to try to stop the tumble I know is coming, but I've got too much velocity. My arm and leg don't slow me down at all. But a brick wall stops me quite nicely.

I'm not too dizzy, I only rolled two and a half times. I pull myself up into a sitting position and shake my head to clear it.

"_Uhhhhhh_..." pressing my hand against my forehead seems to stop the spinning sensation. My cape is all hanging in front of my right shoulder. I toss it over my shoulders again and try to assess the damage.

Whoa, I came real close to crashing into the sharp metal corner of this dumpster.

My right hip and shoulder are throbbing a little. I'm going to have bruises tomorrow. No other pain I can't walk off. I'll have to check the gadgets in my right shoulder compartments to make sure I didn't break anything. Great, my communicator is in there. The right knee of my pants is ripped, and my knee is skinned and bleeding. It stings like you wouldn't believe. Weird how the smallest wounds can hurt so much. Man, it's been years since I've skinned my knees. I think the last time was when I fell off my bike and Mom...

Let's not think about Mom.

I stand and dust myself off. I'm a little wet and a lot cold, but no one was around to see that. Thank God. I think I'll go around the back of the building, so I don't have to walk on the street looking like I've been dragged from a dumpster. Another inch and I would have been. Not that there's a soul out there.

Alfred's waiting in the next alley. The sight of the red van is comforting. I'm dying for someplace warm and dry and with locks on the doors. The idea that The Joker is loose in Gotham with a vendetta against Batman is making me a little nervous, especially alone and in this costume. Okay, now I'm feeling just a bit like a coward. I'll deal with the Joker later when I have a plan. I climb into the van and Alfred turns the headlights on.

"I trust everything is in order? You are ready to go home?"

"Nothing's in order, Alfie. The Batsignal was lit."

"Indeed. I saw. But if you are here and not out there..."

"There's been an escape at Arkham. It's bad."

"Whom?"

I know what he's going to say. He's going to say My word! "It's The Joker."

"My word!"

At any other time, I would be mildly amused by Alfred's predictability. But right now I'm too worried.

"The Joker!" I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. I wish I had long sleeves on this costume. Wet Teflon against bare skin is the worst. "I'm not ready for this, Alfred! I haven't been at this long enough to go against a heavy like that on my own!"

Alfred is trying to keep his worry from showing. "Chin up, Master Robin. Just because that madman is abroad again doesn't necessarily mean he's coming to Gotham to make trouble."

Of course it does. Where else would he go? Metropolis? Alfred's just trying to comfort me. "You don't really believe that, do you, Alfred?"

"Just trying to look on the bright side of things, young man."

"Well, let me panic a while first and get it over with, okay?" I just want to go home and pull the blankets over my head. In this situation, any other kid my age would tell his dad. My dad's in a coma. And wouldn't he keel over if he knew I was Robin. Any other kid might even confide in his mother. My mom's dead. I wonder what she thinks of the teenage vigilante gig. She even panicked when I told her I wanted to play baseball. And I don't even have Batman to run to. ...I'll face these problems tomorrow.

"Can we hit it, Alfie?"

"Of course, Master Robin," and he shifts the van into gear.

Well, at least I have Alfred.

* * *


	3. Putting Freeze On Ice

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Putting Freeze On Ice**

The cabby had been very relieved to learn that he only had to drive Mister Green Hair as far as Gotham, but his relief was quelled when he learned exactly what part Creepy wanted to be taken to. It was not the safest area, and he avoided it altogether when he could. But again he was reminded of how much he had been paid to do this job and do it right, so he pressed on. Besides, Ol' White Face could certainly take care of himself, and perhaps eliminate any threat at all in the process, guaranteeing the cabby safety.

Finally, they pulled up in front of the building where Clown Boy wanted to be let off. It was dark and silent.

"This is place?" the cabby was highly doubtful. "Look empty. You want wait?" He didn't exactly like the idea of driving out of here alone, and would appreciate someone who could protect him.

"I no want wait, you ignoramus!" the Joker hissed. "Hit the bricks!"

When the cabby heard the hostility in the Joker's voice, he was more than happy to do just that. Some gratitude. He was just trying to be helpful.

The Joker stared up at the front of the building that had been his hideout for years. It was an abandoned party supply warehouse (what better place for him?) with a picture of a clown on the outside. Might as well put up a big neon sign that said "Joker's Hideout". But it didn't matter. The Joker was so widely feared that even if he did put up that neon sign, he wouldn't be disturbed. Hm. A neon sign. Maybe he would put one up.

He opened the door to see dim lights and a fog of cigarette smoke, his accomplices around a table playing poker.

"Honey, I'm home!" he sang.

"Geez, it's da boss!"

"Holy--"

"How'd you get out?"

Wait. This was not the greeting he was expecting. Yes, his accomplices definitely seemed surprised to see him, but strangely, they were not happily surprised! Oh, come, come now!

"Believe it or not, the hardest part was finding a lawyer who wore the same suit size as moi!" If the Joker had begun to worry about his gang's obvious lack of enthusiasm for his return, he had already forgotten his worries in anticipation of his plans for them. "Oh, the plans I've planned! The schemes I've schemed for me and my gang!"

"Uh, Joker, ya see, the thing is..."

"That's great, Joker, but..."

An abysmal voice interrupted their stumblings as a figure entered the room in a swirl of mist and fog.

"What they are trying to say is that you are no longer boss around here."

The Joker whirled around to see who had addressed him so rudely. However, when he saw the frosty figure, he showed no anger or fear at all.

"And you are...?" the Joker was as polite as if introducing himself to a dauphin prince.

"Freeze is the name. Mister Freeze to you," the man encased in a thermally controlled suit answered as cold air misted around him and jets let off bursts off cool air which turned to mist upon contact with the outside world. His head was surrounded by thick glass, keeping every inch of his body at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. "The gang is mine now."

The Joker exploded into hysterical cackling. Everyone stared at him in terrified silence, except for Mr. Freeze, who glared icy contempt toward The Joker. But he remained in utter composure. Joker wiped tears from his eyes and tried to gain his breath.

"And...And...And wh-what did you get with this guy? Ha ha! A free ice maker? Ha ha ha ha!"

"Now hold on there," the frosty voice showed no evidence of emotion.

"You let this... popsicle, this second rate Captain Cold tell you what to do?" Joker reeled on his gang.

"Geez, Joker, we didn't think you was comin' back!"

"Well, I'm back!" he growled. Then his mood lightened again as he turned back to Mr. Freeze. "And I'm here to announce the end of the ice age! Freeze, Mr. Freeze!" Joker whipped out two water guns and sprayed the front of Freeze's glass hood. "Get it? Freeze? Haw haw haw haw haw haw!!!"

The water froze instantly around the glass and Mr. Freeze couldn't see. Then, Joker gripped his hand and hand-buzzered him. Freeze fell flat on his back with a fizzle of smoke rising from the center of his chest. Joker was sure he was dead.

"Remember, it's not the voltage that kills ya, it's the amps!" Joker held out his fried hand buzzer. It was smoking too.

"You iced him, Joker!" Bones, the largest mook, clapped his hands.

"Bones, if I told ya once, I told ya a million times," Joker gave a frightening grin, glaring sideways at his gang, "I make the jokes around here." But then, like a card in the deck, the mood passed, and it was light again. "Now! Let's get busy!

"I thought of some great activities for us locked away in my padded cell in the long evening hours after electro-shock therapy! I was given plenty of educational reading materials! We're going to bring this town to the brink of chaos!"

"The rest musta done ya some good," Bones observed. "You ain't mentioned the Batman once!"

"Really?" Joker blink-blinked and pressed his palms to his chest. His face began to twist with an evil idea. Not mentioned Batman, eh? He'd have to amend that.

* * *


	4. Warlocks, Warriors and Geekazoids

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Warlocks, Warriors and Geekazoids**

Can barely keep my eyes open. I know Alfred and I were home by 11:45 last night, but that didn't let me get any sleep. Oh, I laid awake all night long worrying about the Joker. I really wish last night was a Friday night. School is killing me. It's seven minutes after eight in the morning, and I really want to be in bed. I wonder how long I've been staring into my locker. I know there's a reason I'm here. I probably need a book. That's usually the reason people go to their lockers. But what class is next?

Trigonometry. Oh yeah. Great. Like I can even spell my own name right now. I hope I concentrated enough this morning to dress right. I don't even remember taking a shower, but I do remember drying my hair, so I know I must have. I'm wearing jeans and Cons, okay, and a black long-sleeved shirt with a button-down red flannel over it. Red. I wear more red vests and shirts and sweatshirts than anyone I know. It's like I'm still partly in costume even as Tim Drake. The little red-breast. It's a wonder no one's figured me out.

What was I looking for in here? Oh yeah. There's that ol' Trig book, huge and heavy. Wonder if I can pick it up. I guess I should try soon. Whoa, feels heavier than usual. Yeah, I beat up bad guys all night, but I can't pick up a book. Maybe I'll just lean here on my locker until I figure out how to spell my name. Let's see...

"Tim! Tim Drake!"

Yeah, that's it. D... R... A...

"Drake, you look wasted, man."

Oh. It's Ives. I shake my head and blink. Of course I wasn't checking to see if I could spell my name. Got to think clearly... I turn to face him. I'm looking straight at a blue wool vest. Ives is that tallest kid I've ever met. He towers over me, and we're the same age. Then again, I'm not very tall for my age. Okay, I'm short. Okay, I'm only five-two.

"Guess I've been pulling too many late nights," I raise my head to see him. Ives wears just about the same type of outfit all the time. He wears vests and button-down dress shirts. He's got big round glasses, little green eyes and red hair. He's got more freckles than anyone I know, too. Not just on his face, but all over. He's string-bean skinny and pale as a sheet, it's the Irish in him. And he's my best friend.

"Guess what the mailman brought, Tim!" Hudson calls. He's cheerful. That could only mean one of two things. He got something from Space Voyage, the biggest sci-fi rage with teenagers, or something from Warlocks and Warriors, the biggest fantasy rage with nerds. Yeah, I play it. Got a problem with that?

"Gawd, don't make him guess, Hudson!" Ives rolls his eyes. Hudson is black with thick, large glasses and pretty tall hair. I keep meaning to tell him that style went out long ago, but I can't bring myself to do it. He and Hernandez, the last member of our group, are the only kids I know who are shorter than me.

"The Hudman got the newest Warlocks and Warriors module," Ives explains to save me from guessing. But hey, I had a fifty-fifty chance, right?

"Yeah?" I'm feeling a little more awake now. I enjoy playing situation role-playing games like W&W. It kind of tests my deductive reasoning. And it's way more exciting than reading a murder mystery and seeing if you figured out if it was the butler before the author tells you. At least, if anyone asks, that's my excuse.

"It's au-day-cious!" Hernandez loves this game more than I do. "Dozens of new traps and a scenario with vampires!"

"So," Ives claps me on the shoulder. The _right_ shoulder. I bite my lip to stifle a yelp of pain. "Think you could make it over to my house tonight and we can--"

"Yo, Drake!!!" I know that voice right away.

"_Great_..." I mutter. Karl Ranck is heading straight for us. Hope he didn't hear me, not like I couldn't kick his butt, but that would kind of be like blowing the whole secret identity gig. And I hate letting myself get pounded for the sake of secrecy.

"You think they'd make people evolve before letting them into the ninth grade," Ives nails him. I can't believe he said that right into the face of the largest freshman football player in Gotham Heights.

"Keep it up, Ives Four-Eyes," Ranck jabs Ives in the chest with his forefinger.

"That was hysterical. In the third grade," Ives is keeping it up. Way to go, Ives! Show no fear! Then again, Ives is taller than Karl...

I'm still leaning my back against my locker, so I tuck my foot up high against my locker, placing my knee between Ives and Ranck, stopping any further contact.

"What is it, Karl?" and why do you always have to yell and call me by my last name? But I'm not going to say that.

"Well, my parents are away for the weekend, and, like, I'm gonna have a killer Christmas party tonight. You wanna come over?" Karl has an arm around Sylvia, an empty-headed bombshell whom I had never heard speak, only giggle.

"I don't think so," I push off my locker, turn, and close it. I forgot my notebook in there. I'll just take notes in my book in pencil, then erase them later. "I got a lot of things to do after school."

"So, the answer is, like, no, okay?" Ives imitates Ranck's jock talk a little too well. I'm not going to turn around to see what Ranck is going to do to Ives. I'm facing my locker, working on the combination, waiting for the war to end. Maybe I will get that notebook out.

I hear the pound of a flat hand against locker metal. I look to my right. Karl's right hand is against my locker over my right shoulder. Then I hear a similar pound on my left. _Me?_ He's mad at _me?_ I turn around. I'm walled in my the hulking presence of Karl. He bends his elbows, getting closer. I feel myself pressing back against my locker, trying to regain my fighting distance. I can't.

"I don't _get_ you, Drake! You seem like a cool enough guy, but you hang out with these... _geekazoids_! You should be with a different crowd."

"I like to have friends, not a crowd," I answer, glaring at him, then I push past him.

"Suit yourself, m' man. But friends like that will get you nowhere." Karl is gone. Ives is still here, though annoyed.

"So you are coming to my place tonight to play Warlocks and Warriors?" Ives has that victorious glint in his Irish eyes.

"I... I can't, Ives." Now I feel like a heel. But the Joker takes precedence. I just wish I could explain that to my friends. Or to girls in my class. Or to teachers who think my bruises are from a troubled home. "I have a lot going on at home right now."

I can feel my friends' eyes on my back, but I can't say anything more. Besides, the bell just rang, and I'm late for Trig.

Thank God it's Friday.

* * *


	5. Staples Bad, Robinmobile Good

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Staples Bad, Robinmobile Good**

When I got home from school, I slept for an hour and a half, then meditated for another half hour. Now I'm standing in a cold shower. Well, not quite cold, I put a little hot water on. It's too cold outside to take an entirely cold shower. I really want to turn the "H" knob all the way up and boil myself, but I can't. I'll fall fast asleep.

Alright, this is quite enough. My teeth are chattering. I'm getting out. I left my robe in my room. I left my towel in my room. I forgot everything in my room down the hall. Fortunately, Alfred keeps the bathrooms stocked with "general use" bathroom items, like shampoo and soap and towels, thank god. I wrap the biggest, thickest towel I can find around my waist and pad barefoot back down to my room. The marble floor is freezing. I think I'm awake enough to tackle being Robin tonight.

* * *

Finally, I'm in the Batcave. School was longer than usual today. Well, it felt like it was. Putting on the costume was almost enough of a rush to wake me up. Fear-adrenaline is also doing the trick.

Not a peep from the Joker, and I decide to check out his cell at Arkham. Alfred is firing up the van. I'm ready to start calling this thing the Robinmobile, since it's my only form of transportation right now. I can't be seen with Alfred, so the van is not a widely known or seen accessory of the Dynamic Duo. Could you imagine what would happen if someone saw me with Alfred? Actually, I don't think we've been careful enough about that. I sink down a bit in the passenger seat as we drive through a residential area of the Gotham suburbs.

Alfred lets me off on a tiny little deserted back road about a half a mile from Arkham. If we get any closer, I could be seen getting out of a red van, and the red van could be followed or driven off the road, and Alfred could be kidnapped, and forced to lead them to Bruce and I, and that would kill everything! Okay, I'm being a little paranoid, and projecting a little, too, but I can't help it. I'm up against some heavy odds, here. So it means a half-mile hike in the cold, snowy woods towards a loony bin.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm shivering in the lobby of the offices at Arkham. They're being very helpful, really, and I suppose that's because they think I'm just going to take this information directly back to Batman. I've already questioned the Director and Assistant Director completely, and got every detail I could. Not much help. Malwitz is taking me to see Joker's cell. He wishes Batman were here. Don't we all. But I have to admit, it's really beginning to hurt that I'm such a letdown to everyone. If I don't screw this one up, maybe that will all change.

"I haven't had a wink of sleep since this whole thing started," Malwitz looks pretty wasted, too. He didn't need to tell me that. At least with this mask of mine, no one can see the dark circles under my eyes. "Are we expecting your mentor soon?"

Yeah, I was wondering when he'd ask me that.

"He's..." No, better not tell him he's out of town. Don't want a panic to ensue. "Batman's involved in another aspect of the case. We thought it might help if I got a look at The Joker's cell." There. Made it sound like Batman's calling the shots, making me do the dirty work.

Before I left the Cave, I called Commissioner Gordon and told him it might be best if he didn't tell anyone that Batman was out of town. That might really set the Joker on a crime spree. Gordon agreed. Gordon's a wise man.

"I'm not sure what his cell might tell you," Malwitz is unlocking the door. "There's not much here to see. But we didn't take anything out of it. Everything's here."

I walk into the room. It's stark, bare. But there are books all over the floor and bed and stacked in the corner. "You let him have books out of your library?" I pick one up. _Science Weekly_.

"Books and magazines. Nothing that would feed his psychosis."

I'm leafing through them. technical manuals, cyberspace, information superhighway, _Data_ magazine, tons of stuff that I would love but The Joker would probably get bored. I don't get it.

"Nothing with Batman in it, anyway," I mutter.

"We even removed the staples from the magazines. You'd be surprised what use an inmate here could find for a staple."

No, I wouldn't. It wouldn't surprise me at all anymore. A staple could be a murder weapon with these psychos.

"This is all computer stuff. Why would this interest The Joker?"

Malwitz shrugs. "Who knows? Maybe he's trying to decide on a career for when and if he rejoins society."

Doubtful. "May I take some of these with me?"

"Don't see why not. Knock yourself out. The guard'll let you out when you're through."

Malwitz is gone. I sit down on the bunk. For a second, the fact that I'm sitting on the bed that Gotham's biggest murderer sat on every night for years, on and off, gives me the creeps. The last time he was sent here was for the murder of Jason Todd, the last Robin before me. That was only a year and a half ago. And that was because Robin tried to take on Joker without Batman. Which is exactly what I'm doing right now. What if the next time he's sent here, it's because of the murder of another Robin, namely me?

If I keep worrying about what I can't change and not looking for clues, I'll never find the Joker. I'm a detective. I'm going to start acting like one.

There's a magazine that is lying open on his bed. _Computer Whiz_ open to an article about Osgood Pellinger. I've heard of him. He's a genius with any type of information system. Mostly interactive software. There's another one with an article in it actually written by Osgood Pellinger. Hm. That's two. And in the stack, there's one with a picture of Osgood Pellinger on the cover. Three. I pick all the ones I can find with Osgood Pellinger in them. It comes out to be almost all of them. The guard lets me out and I head for Bullock's car. Bullock was questioning all the guards. He's already out there and waiting for me.

"What'd ya find?"

"Oh, just some magazines that were in his cell. I figure I'll look through them and see if there's anything in them that might have sparked The Joker's interest."

I don't want Harvey Bullock running into this like a bull in a china shop when I know my way around cyberspace better than anyone the police can boast.

Bullock is staring at me. It's a little in expectation and a little in suspicion and anger that I won't tell him what I'm thinking.

"You'll tell me if you get any leads, kid."

I turn to look at him and try to look hurt.

"Of course!"

"Where do you want to be dropped off, kid?"

"Police Headquarters is fine."

"Okay."

We don't say a word for the rest of the ride, except Bullock cursing at the few cars that had the misfortune to be on Detective Bullock's roads, driving insanely slowly, the speed limit, in front of Bullock's unmarked vehicle. Alfred will be waiting at Headquarters with the van, in the alley.

I really wish I was old enough to drive.

* * *


	6. Kill The Little Birdie

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Kill The Little Birdie**

Back in the Cave, I'm pacing. I can't seem to sit still. Besides, it's cold down here! Alfred has his face buried in a stack of newspapers, but I know he notices my fidgeting nonetheless. I'm making a conscious effort to stand still. It's impossible. I'm too worried, excited and terrified. I spin my ergonomic computer chair around and straddle it, wondering how ergonomic it is when used this way.

"Most of the articles and books in his cell were by or about Dr. Osgood Pellinger," I explain, rolling and unrolling one of the magazines.

Alfred doesn't look up. "You feel that the Joker has an affinity for Dr. Pellinger?"

"Or they share common interests. Something like that." I drop the magazine onto the Batcomputer and pick up another one. I spin the chair around while scanning an article I've already read several times, then I'm up and pacing over to the lab equipment. I hop up to sit on the iron table. I'm fanning the pages of the magazine, but I'm not really looking at in anymore. My mind is racing with possibilities. I'm consciously trying to slow it down to sort out the details.

"The Doctor's area of expertise is the growing danger to society of overreliance on computers." I don't have to read a magazine to know this. I'm up again and pacing back past the computer. Osgood Pellinger is a name I'm very familiar with. "He says it's the environmental issue of the next century."

"So the Joker is looking to become computer literate?" Alfred still hasn't looked at me yet.

"Could be." Alfred's clipping papers now. "Alfred, what are you doing?"

"Fighting crime the old-fashioned way. Whenever one of Master Bruce's more formidable hooligans visits Gotham, it is my duty to peruse the dailies for possible crimes." He holds up a clipping of a jewel heist. Nice try, Alfred, but I don't think that's what the Joker is after right now.

"I think our crime is right here," I pound one of the rolled-up magazines into my open palm. "We just have to figure out the connection in The Joker's mind."

"You'll pay a visit to Osgood Pellinger?" Alfred puts the paper down and dusts his palms together. I pick up my mask.

"Let's get the van rolling, Alfie." Alfred's back on my wavelength and already heading for the van.

* * *

Alfred placed the paper back on top of the pile neatly. He was aware that Robin didn't care for his crime fighting tactics and was getting impatient. Perhaps the young master was right after all. His techniques were old-fashioned and weren't worth wasting time on. He picked up his coat and hat and followed the costumed boy to the waiting red van.

If only he had stuck with his paper-searching long enough to turn one more page, he would have seen that an electronics store had been broken into the previous night, and over $20,000 worth of computer equipment, hardware, software, modems, monitors, discs, applications, CD-ROM, internet software, had been stolen.

* * *

We're rolling at about five miles an hour past the front of a beautiful old house in an unlikely section of Gotham. I stare in disbelief for a moment. The house is on a corner with a traffic light. Next to it is a four-story apartment building with a satellite dish on top of it. Behind it, an abandoned factory with broken windows and an empty lot. It looks like progress left Pellinger's house behind. It looks like time left Pellinger's house behind.

"This is the address the directory gave, Robin," Alfred senses my hesitation.

"Was this once a nice section of Gotham?"

"At one time."

I shake myself out of my reverie and look around to see if anyone is on the street. Alfred takes more time than necessary to peer around the corner to make a right-hand turn, and the van rolls almost imperceptibly around the corner. Lights in all the windows of all the houses around are dark, except for one or two, and one on the second story of Pellinger's house. Alfred hasn't touched the gas. The van is rolling slowly, very slowly.

"Come back in an hour. I want to watch the house for a while. This guy may be tight with The Joker."

"Tight?"

"In cahoots."

"Ah. Cooperating with." Alfred never was very good with slang. Once around the corner, we are near a tall hedge along the side of Pellinger's house. I time myself as best I can, then fling open the door and dive out into the bushes. Hopefully nobody saw that. I hear Alfred yank the door closed and drive away as I scale the black wrought-iron fence. Battling evil-doers would be a lot easier if I had a driver's license, but they don't give those to fourteen-year-old boys.

It's close to midnight, but there are some lights on up on the second floor. At least I'm not the only one still working at this hour. I better get up there and see what's going on. No trellis. The drainpipe will have to do. It's frozen solid. If I jerk too hard, I could pull it right down.

I manage not to pull the drainpipe off the house. There's a little awning below the second story windows. I can sit there. I come up just to Pellinger's left. He's at his computer with his back to the bay window. I crawl around to the front of the windows, where there's little chance of Pellinger seeing me, and much chance of everyone else seeing me. But there are few people out in this weather. No people, actually.

Pellinger's fireplace is lit, giving the room a warm, yellow glow. There's a cup of coffee beside him, with a thin twist of steam rising off it. He's wearing a warm, fuzzy sweater. And I'm out here on his awning in the wet and cold and snow wearing Teflon tights and a Kevlar cape. Good thing I wore my thermals, too. Huh. Alfred calls them Bat-skivvies. I wish I were in there by his fire. That coffee looks good.

It's been fifteen minutes. He's typing, I can't see what. It looks like some article for a paper. I try my mini-binoculars. Yeah, it's a magazine article. Same stuff as usual. How people are trying to develop ways to prevent data loss in the event of a power failure, something other than interval timed backups that slow the operation for a fraction of a second. I put my binoculars away. He's still typing.

It's been thirty-five minutes out on the awning. He's typing, I'm freezing.

12:41am. Pellinger scratches his nose, adjusts his glasses, sips his coffee. I'm still freezing, and a little bored. I wish something would happen. Alfred's coming back in about nine minutes.

12:47am. I get my wish. Pellinger shuts his system down and gets a coat on. I stay put. He passes right under me and gets into his car. It's awful late at night for a road trip, especially in this weather. The Doc's a night owl. A snow plow is headed down the street as Pellinger struggles to get his car started. The snow plow. Something's real wrong here. This street's already been plowed. As the plow nears Pellinger's car, it swerves toward his rear bumper. It's going to ram him!

My batarang is already around the nearest lamppost. The only way to land on top of the slippery roof of the plow is straight down. I swing a little past it, allow the swing to slow and arc back. The plow has scooped up Pellinger's car and dumped it upside-down into the back of the truck, which was filled with sand for streets. I hear the Joker's laugh. For a second I'm scared by hearing that laugh in person for the first time. I can't hear what he's saying. But he's ecstatic over the capture. Well, at least my lead paid off. Unfortunately, it won't do me a bit of good if the Joker gets away. I let go of my rope just over the roof of the truck. But how do I stop a twenty-ton truck driven by a maniac? I hit the roof and my right foot slips out from under me. I plant my left hand and get my balance. The truck is accelerating.

* * *

"Boss," the large man in the passenger seat cried, "somethin' landed on the roof!"

"No riders!" the Joker scowled. "You never know what kind of nut you might pick up!"

The large man with a lumberjack beard pulled a semi-automatic from his jacket and aimed it at the roof.

* * *

I hear an explosion like a firecracker as a bullet whistles up from inside the truck's cab past my face. I leap for the hood of the truck where I can face my adversary as two more bullets miss me by centimeters. I don't like guns at all. One of the bullets puts a nice hole in my cape near my shoulder. That was close.

I crash my bo staff through the windshield at the gunman and take him out. Then I turn to look at the driver and freeze in my tracks. As does the driver.

It's The Joker. I've never seen him face to face before. I've seen pictures and newsreels and I've hears all about him, but I've never seen him. I can't bring myself to move.

For some reason, The Joker seems to be having a similar reaction to the sight of me. He can't seem to believe his eyes. Even though it was hardly possible, The Joker seems to pale a bit.

"You!" he whispers, and I hear his tremouring voice through the broken glass of the windshield. The plow is slowing as Joker ceases to pay attention to driving.

"You!" he cries, louder this time. "I killed you!"

...He thinks I'm Jason Todd. The second Robin. I'm the third. Jason found his birth mother, only to find she was being blackmailed into cooperating with The Joker. Joker locked them both in a warehouse in Sinai and blew them sky high. Jason threw himself in front of his mother to protect her. He was killed instantly. Blown right out of his boots. She survived long enough to tell her story to Batman, then she died as well. The Joker killed Robin. This man in front of me, the Joker, killed Robin.

"**_I KILLED YOU_**!!!!" he screams at me. The look in his emerald eyes startles me into motion. I aim my bo staff at his sick, twisted face, but the Joker rams another car. I fall off the roof and tumble. Luckily, the road had already been plowed and I fall onto a mound of snow the plow has left piled up on the side of the road and roll down onto the street.

"I KILLED YOU!!! YOU'RE DEAD!!!! _DEAD!!!_ **_DEAD!!"_** The Joker's screeching now. I can hear him as he speeds off down the street. My head is spinning. "Well, just have to kill him again. Kill the little birdie. Yes, yes! First things first, though. Things to do. Places to go. People to kill..."

I'm soaking and freezing and hurting. No way I'll catch up to the Joker now. He's long gone. Wow. He is crazy.

Huh... 'Kill the little birdie...' Not if I can help it. I must ask Dick if he ever got all this "little birdie" garbage that I'm getting. There's snow inside the tops of my boots. I hate that. There's also snow matted into my hair, clinging to my cape and tunic, and melting off my cheeks and chin.

I'm ready to go home now.

* * *


	7. The Brilliant Plan

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - A Brilliant Plan**

I have no other leads. I'm two blocks and six minutes from where and when I told Alfred to meet me, but he's found me anyway.

"Robin, you weren't on the corner at the appointed time. I came looking for you. You weren't hard to find. I merely followed the tracks of the plow. The Joker?

The plow was the only vehicle on the road all night. He would have no other tracks to follow except those. 

"Yes, it was The Joker. I get an _A_ for the detective work and an _Incomplete_ for the follow-up," I don't care anymore if anyone sees me get into the van. I open the door and climb in. It's warmer and drier in the van, but not as warm and dry as I'd be after a hot bath and in my bed. But I can't sleep yet. "He grabbed Dr. Pellinger."

"Don't worry. There'll be more clues."

I snap my seatbelt into place and exhale. Alfred turns to look at me.

"My word!" He touches the fabric of my cape near my shoulder.

"Huh?" I glance at my cape. The bullet-hole. "Oh. Don't worry. They missed."

"Not by a very large margin, Master Robin!" Alfred is alarmed.

"The vest's bullet-proof, Alfie."

"The sleeves are not. A bullet to the shoulder is quite painful as well."

"No one's going to shoot me, Alfred. I promise."

"As you say, Robin." Alfred shifts the van into gear and heads back towards the secret entrance to the Batcave.

At least I _hope_ no one's going to shoot me.

* * *

"And now," The Joker grinned at his gang, "I wish to present to you the most dangerous man in Gotham. Next to myself, of course."

Joker flipped a switch on the fall and a funnel of light descended on Pellinger, wrists bound, standing in the center of the room. It was just the showmanship Joker adored.

"Dr. Osgood Pellinger." Joker applauded alone.

"Haw!" a scruffy-faced man guffawed. "This geek? Nice gag, Joker! This guy's dangerous?"

"He looks tough tuh me!" Bones laughed. "Proll'y shoves pins t'roo butterflies! Ha ha!"

"Shut up, you dopes!" Joker whacked Bones upside the head with the baseball bat that was leaning against a table. It knocked the poor man flat, and he'd probably be out for hours. "Dr. Pellinger is not here to amuse you cretins!"

Joker leaned on the bat as if it were a cane. "The good professor is a computer genius. Everything runs on computers these days. Like a genie's bottle. Like a magic wand. If you know your way around a keyboard, the world is yours. Osgood here," Joker stepped over to the tall, this, cowering man and embraced the man's head to his shoulder, "is going to help us turn this city into a circus! And I'm going to be Ringmaster!"

* * *

I tear my mask off my face, ignoring the pain. I hear a sharp intake of breath from Alfred. As a veteran of the British stage, Alfred knows what it feels like to tear spirit gum off your face without using spirit gum dissolvant. Alfred sighs and places the bottle of gum remover back on the table. I'm too angry with myself to worry about letting my mask slowly dissolve off.

"I blew it!" I hurl my mask across the floor. "If Batman finds out about this, he'll look for someone else to wear this outfit!" I yank my gloves off and sling them across the room. They smack against the far wall and drop to the floor. Alfred is picking up my mask and heading for my gloves. I lean against the computer console for support. Now I feel doubly like a jerk. Once for letting The Joker get away, and twice because Alfred's picking up after my tantrum.

"Nonsense," Alfred places my gloves and mask on the shelf next to the rack where my costumes are and begins flipping light switches on. I don't feel particularly like working. I feel like sulking. "Master Bruce has been handed his share of defeats at the hand of The Joker. Oh, he triumphs, but it's always a near thing. That madman is the most dangerous foe Batman faces. The most treacherous of all the villains in his rogues gallery."

I look up. Maybe he's right. Maybe I am being too hard on myself. Maybe... "Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Alfred. But not only did I mess up totally, but the next time I meet The Joker, he'll probably kill me."

I shouldn't have said that. Alfred looks pretty shocked. But that's exactly what I'm afraid of. Another Robin bites it at that hands of The Joker. And let's face it, Joker doesn't have a history of being real nice to Dick, Jason, or me.

"I shouldn't think that--"

"What if this psycho figures out that Batman isn't in Gotham?"

Alfred sinks into a chair at the opposite end of the Batcomputer as if he fears he can't stand any longer and might faint. "Dear. That hadn't occurred to me."

"He'll go ballistic." I lean my elbows on the console. I'm just so tired... "He's not afraid of the police. Batman's the only thing that keeps him in line."

I stand up straight. I have an idea! "We have to convince The Joker that Batman is still in town!"

Alfred is not taken by the spark of my idea. "And how will we do that?"

"We'll need a brilliant plan! If you think of one first, let me know."

* * *

Alfred was insistent. The boy whose care he had been given was going to sleep and he was going to sleep right now. He would not have Master Bruce returning home to find the boy in the condition he was in now, and quite a state it was. He had hardly slept, eaten, or done anything but worry for the past four days. Joker or no, plan or no, Tim was going to bed. Alfred practically had to push him up the stairs out of the Batcave, and only conceded to let him out of his bedroom to have the hot bath the young man said he was thinking about all evening.

"But I want you asleep by 1:30, young man, no excuses. And you are not to wake before noon tomorrow," which was fine since it would be Saturday.

_Besides_, Alfred sighed as he made his way back down the stairs, leaving Tim with that final warning, _when Master Tim is asleep is the only time I can be asleep_.

Alfred listened from before the fireplace in the den and heard Tim draining the bath upstairs, then walking the length of the hallway to his bedroom. Alfred heard the door close and the footsteps cease. He heard a slight creak of bedsprings, then nothing.

Satisfied that the young man was asleep, Alfred brought his empty teacup to the kitchen and retired himself.

* * *

I slept till noon, like I promised Alfred I would. Then Alfred and I spent all afternoon in the Cave, implementing that "brilliant plan".

The brilliant plan turned out to be half Alfred's, half mine. Regardless, it was what has us out here on the streets again, ready to find The Joker and rescue Dr. Pellinger. I could think of better things to do on a Saturday night, like standing on line for that new action flick opening at the Bijou two blocks down.

Gotham's coldest winter in a century, The Joker's loose somewhere, and Batman is working a case south of the equator. I'm still feeling very alone, but crime is not going to stop in Gotham to wait for Batman's return because his fourteen-year-old partner's afraid of the Joker. These two dopes, however, don't scare me at all. I don't need the plan on these guys, but I do need to test it on someone.

They don't look any older than me, but they're trying to break into an entertainment equipment warehouse. With a sledgehammer. Geniuses.

They used to call these types juvenile delinquents. Now, in order to be perfectly P.C., they're called youthful offenders. And they're growing dumber every day. Just talkin' 'bout my generation.

I wrap the 'rang around the chimney pipe next to me and slide down from the roof I'm perched on.

"Aw, no! Look!" the kid with the flashlight shines it directly into my eyes as I land at his feet. I blink and turn a little. Good thing I don't have my Nightvision lenses on. They could've blinded me.

"Who's this?" the kid with the sledgehammer looks as if he's never heard of me before. Not to sound egotistical, but who in Gotham City has never heard of Robin?

"It's Robin!" the kid with the flashlight is as surprised as I am that this dope doesn't recognize me. "Y'know? The kid that hangs with the Batman?"

"So what?" the kid with the sledgehammer answers. "There's two of us, and we're each of us bigger than he is."

All right. So I'm small for my age. And you're not amusing me.

"You guys don't look much like professional criminals," I hiss, "let's call it no harm, no foul, and you two take off." I'm holding my bo staff at the ready. I know they're not going to take off. I'm not a big enough threat by myself. But that's all part of "the plan".

"And what if we just whup you one," the kid raises his sledgehammer over his right shoulder, "and then we bust this store wide open?"

Not too sharp, is he?

Dodging this blunt object (or the sledgehammer he's holding) won't be a problem. But I can't scare them off on my own. Gotta try the plan. I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. "Listen to that little voice in your head. The one that's telling you this macho routines is going to end with you in traction."

The hologram of Batman that Alfred and I set up on the top of the building is convincing. They take to their heels and drop the sledge and flashlight.

Batman always told me that all criminals are basically cowards. It certainly was the case with these two. I'm not sure this was worth all the trouble.

"Hologram off," I use that husky whisper voice, the one that Bruce always uses as Batman, to speak into the remote control. Batman's figure dissolves.

Those punks won't exactly be spreading the word through the underground that Batman's been sighted again. Some criminals are easier to scare than others. And some you can't scare at all.

* * *

_Responses To Reviews:_

_Susie82 – Thank you! I'm glad my treatment of Chuck Dixon's story isn't too painful. Comic and gothic styles are somewhat new to me, as is the genre, I'm usually over in Anime/Sakura Wars, and started out in TV/Star Trek The Next Generation... so this is uncharted territory! I'll try to update quickly. _


	8. A Pact with Russian Seals

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - A Pact With Russian Seals**

The Joker was dressed head to toe in medical greens, with a stethoscope around his neck, rubber gloves on his hands, and protective green booties over his shoes.

"Look at our guest now, gentlemen!" The Joker cackled. Pellinger was seated before a mound of massive computer equipment hooked together shoddily and piled on top of itself. There were at least twenty monitors, most of smaller size, and one large on in the middle. He looked like he was in some sort of trance. He sat, perfectly still except for his fingers, which flew over the keyboard, like a zombie in front of the elaborate system. His face was slack and his eyes wide and staring. A thin string of saliva slipped from the corner of his mouth. His shoulders were hunched and his neck was craned.

"And you laughed when I suggested he was going to be the most dangerous man in Gotham!" The Joker picked up a syringe and a bottle of liquid to fill it with.

"He looks kinda weird, Joker," one man narrowed his eyes at Pellinger.

"He looks sick," another agreed.

"Au contraire!" The Joker shot the air bubbles up through the needle of the syringe, "I've been medicating him. Trying to get him to loosen up, let his hair down. Make him want to par-tay!"

The Joker rolled up Pellinger's sleeve. Pellinger made no reaction to this whatsoever. "The good doctor is going to give us the keys to the city, aren't you, Doc?"

"Uh-huh... Uh-huh... Uh-huh..." Pellinger looked half dead.

"Excellent! He's soooo cooperative!"

* * *

The words in my American History book are growing fuzzy. My teacher's voice is getting distant, like he's speaking a foreign language in another room. My head is drooping but I can't stop it. I prop my head up with my hand, but my eyelids flutter closed. I was out too much this weekend. Even when I did have a chance to sleep, I was so worried that I couldn't.

"And so the United States and Russia entered into diplomatic negotiations for the first time since the purchase of the Alaska territory..."

My teacher's words aren't getting through to me. I'm too tired even to make an effort to understand. My eyes are closed. I can't get them open...

"This resulted in a pact between the two nations concerning wildlife in the Bering Strait." His voice is getting louder. I can't acknowledge that. I can't sit up straight. I can't open my eyes. I can't I can't I can't I can't....

"What sort of wildlife did the pact of 1898 concern, Timothy Drake?" his pointer whistles down through the air towards my desktop. WWHHAACK!!!

Whoa! I'm awake! I'm awake!

"Whuh?" is the best I can manage.

"Shall I repeat the question?" Uh-oh. He's mad. But there's nothing I can do. I didn't hear the question. "What sort of wildlife is the subject of the Russo-American Pact of 1898?

The what? Wildlife? Bears? No, most likely something of importance. Perhaps something that may be at risk of endangerment or extinction. "Ummm... Uh..."

"Well???"

Oh boy. Um... What in the world is Ives doing? Ives sits one row over and two seats in front of me. Mr. Simmons is facing the back of the room, facing me, and Ives is behind him, gesticulating wildly. He's clapping the backs of his hands together. He looks ridiculous. He looks like a...

"Seal? Seals?"

"Are you asking me or telling me, Mister Drake?"

I hate when they say that. "Seals." I answer in no uncertain terms.

"Precisely. A treaty signed to restrict the hunting of seals off the coast of the Aleutian Islands..."

I exhale in relief and run my fingers through my hair. Ives gives me a thumbs-up. I return the gesture, unable to smile at it yet.

* * *

Lunch period. I can see Ives across the crowded cafeteria. We have a table we usually sit at, and Ives is there first. I sit next to him and start to unpack the lunch Alfred made for me.

"You saved my life, Ives!"

"You shoulda seen your face, Drake! You looked like you woke up to a nightmare!"

"Great imitation of a seal, by the way," I pull the lid off a Tupperware container.

"I could have done better, but I left my beachball at home today," Ives is really a great guy. It's a shame more people don't give him a chance to show it.

"What is that stuff you're eating?" Ives looks over from his school-bought lunch tray of mystery meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, and a carton of milk to my home-packed lunch.

"Just some leftovers," I don't want to have this conversation.

"I mean, what is it?" Ives insists.

Fine. He wanted to know, and I know what conversation is going to start. "It's... It's just some fish and..." Oh, what the heck. "It's trout dijon over wild rice with a garnish of capers. Alfred made one helping too many and--"

"What the heck are you doing at Gotham Heights, Master Tim?"

Great. Here we go again with the rich-brat-at-poor-urchin-school talk.

"What do you mean?" I know perfectly well what he means.

"Your butler sends you to school with a bag lunch that isn't exactly a P.B. and J. sandwich. The clothes you have on cost more than my whole closet!"

"So?" I'm feeling defensive. My mother's dead. My father's in a coma. Bruce is gone. The Joker's loose. And I'm spending sorely needed sleep-time on rooftops in tights. And Ives thinks I'm lucky because I have an expensive red sweater on, and trout dijon for lunch. Poor... deluded... child. But he's just ragging on me.

"So, why aren't you packed away to one of those fancy boarding schools like the rest of the rich brats?"

You mean the ones whose parents don't care enough or have enough time for them? "Been there, Ives, old chum!" I say, imitating a lock-jawed upper-class accent. And I have been there, too. I hated it. "Mister Wayne thought Gotham Heights would be more... broadening."

"Ha!" Ives jabs me in the shoulder with his fork. Mercifully, it was not my healing right shoulder this time. "Well, Mister Wayne better get you some No-Doz! We start the Industrial Revolution next week in History, and I do a lousy imitation of a cotton gin!"

"Yeah," I sigh, staring at my leftovers. "I have to cut out these late nights. As soon as I take care of this little problem I have."

Little, HAH.

* * *

_Responses to Reviews:_

_Evil Ballon – Thank you for being my review number two, then! I will try to keep updating quickly until the whole story is up. If I am VERY lucky, this week! I am glad you are enjoying it!_

_GhostNinja85 – Greg Rucka adapted "No Man's Land" Can you believe I have not read it? ...I am woefully lax, my most recent adaptation purchase was "Knightfall" – I must catch up. And I am very flattered that you make the comparison! Is this a quick enough updated I hope? _

_Susie82 – Thanks for the review again! Yes, the Tim/Robin duality was a little bit of a struggle, seemingly so much easier to portray in art than in words. There are times in the story where I felt I contrived it too blatently, but then, I suppose you are right, perhaps Tim contrives it too! (i.e., deep husky voice) I increased the Alfred stage-time, as I love that character! I did omit a bit of the information given to the readers of the comic, simply because I could not find a reason why they would be present to witness that information, but most of it I left in. I figure, most of the readers of this story have read the comic already, so I won't be spoiling any surprises!_


	9. She's So High Above Me

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

Author's Note: Suddenly, the "center" function of 's editor isn't working, so please forgive the left justified chapter title.

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - She's So High Above Me**

"Are you sure this is the place?" the tall, thin girl in the back of the cab had not stepped out yet. She brushed some of her long blonde hair out of her face and stared up at the building. It was dark.

"The Majestic Theatre, one hunnert thirty-fourth street an' Huey Av'nue," the cabby answered. "This is the address y'gave me, lady."

She finally stepped out of the cab, studying the business card that had the address on it, which had been mailed to her home. "This just doesn't look right. Something's wrong here... There should be other people here. The man who sent me this wrote that this was a cattle call. An open audition. Look, I've changed my mind. Take me--" She turned, but the cab was already rolling away down 134th Street.

"--back downtown. Jerk."

She turned back to the dark theatre. There was a paper sign taped to the wall that had the word "AUDITIONS" written on it with black magic marker and underlined with a wavy red line. There was a red arrow pointing towards the stage door. The light above the stage door was on. She turned the knob. It opened. Maybe no one else knew that this was the non-equity night. maybe she would get lucky and be one of the few to audition tonight.

"Hello?" she called. that backstage area was dark. A soft glow was coming from under the runner curtains, the footlights were on. She made her way out through the wide wings and onstage. "Is anyone here?"

There was an echoing clack sound as a spotlight came up full in her face. Startled, she dropped the business card bearing the audition date, time, and place, and shielded her eyes.

"So glad you could make it," a voice came from the darkness. The effect of the light in her face caused the rest of the theatre to be utter darkness. She could not see who was talking to her.

"Look, a guy I met at the agency sent me this card. I didn't belong to equity, so he promised to let me know about any non- equity auditio--"

"The part is a simple one, my dear," the voice interrupted her. "All I require is that you scream."

"What?" she couldn't believe that. She had prepared two contrasting monologues and a showtune. She brought her music, her resume, her bio shot, her references. Didn't he want any of that? Perhaps later...

"Let me hear you scream."

Just scream. No scenario, no warming up, no getting into character, no character advice, no plot line, no exercise to dispel inhibitions. Just scream. Stanislovsky would hate this guy.

"Eek," a small screech emanated from the girl's throat.

"No, no, no," the voice replied. "A bit more enthusiasm. A bit more _mo_-tivation."

Ah. Now he was going to give her what she needed. A scenario and some motivation. She could feel it coming.

"Imagine that there are figures in the dark all around. Imagine that they are reaching for you. Hands from t he dark, pulling, clawing, taking you away to a place of torment and humiliation." The man began to walk closer to her. In the shaft of brilliant white light, she could see his shoes as he approached, then his pants, his jacket and shirt. "Your only escape is to raise your voice and let all your terror out for the world to hear--" then she could see his face, his mangled, ruined, grinning face.

"**_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!_**"

She fainted on the stage.

The Joker grinned and stepped up to her unconscious form.

"Such beautiful music," he hissed.

* * *

"You know, it's a shame to have the Batmobile just sitting here like this," I pull back the cover on the coolest car I've ever seen. I wish I could drive! Alfred's loading the holographic equipment into the back of the van. He's breathing heavily from the effort and I can see the vapor of his breath in the cool air. The Cave sure gets cold this time of year.

"If you're suggesting I drive that monster out on your nightly rounds... even if I did know the code that disarms the security system..."

"It's not that," I interrupt him. Well, it is that, a little. I really wish I could cruise the burg in the Batmobile. Really. I wrench myself away from t he beautiful piece of machinery. "But it would be a lot easier to make it seem that Batman was still in Gotham if the 'mobile could be seen on the streets. We can't keep hauling this bulky holographic equipment around."

"Bulky is an understatement, Tim." Oops! I've been wandering around the Cave thinking, and poor Alfred has been hefting equipment into the van all by himself. I start helping Alfred load the van. "But using the Batmobile is out of the question."

All right, all right. How can he tell how I'm gazing longingly at it through my mask and lenses? "Batman's presence is the only thing that's making The Joker keep a low profile. We'll have to set up the hologram projector someplace where it'll do some good. Somewhere that a big crowd will see it." Like where? A movie theatre? Hardly Batman's haunt.

"A more public venue?" Alfred has this way of almost translating my phrases into better vocabulary. "I shall have to--"

He's interrupted by the ringing of a telephone. We are both startled by it and turn to look.

"That's the shielded line! It has to be Batman!" I race over to the phone, but Alfred, who was close anyway, beats me to it.

"Hello?" Alfred's eyebrows bunch up. "Hello? Master Bruce, is that you?"

"Alfred, what's going on?" I watch perplexed as Alfred sighs and hangs up the phone. "Was it him?"

"Just static."

"But...But it had to be him!" Alright, we're getting a little desperate, aren't we now, Tim? "Not even the phone company can get through on that line!" Maybe it was The Joker! ...no, not a chance.

"Even Master Bruce has a difficult time getting a trans-oceanic call through," Alfred is claming me down, but sternly. "I can forward this line to the cellular in t he van should he call back."

Yeah, that's a good idea. I nod once to Alfred and turn towards the van. I'm fighting terror. What if something happened to Bruce? Gotham would be doomed! Alfred climbs into the van and starts it up. My jaw is clenched. It's the only way for me to hold down my fear. I have a feeling that tonight is going to be a big one.

* * *

Setting up holographic equipment on a snowy rooftop is no easy trick. The wind is at our backs, which is helping a little. My cape is plastered against my back and the backs of my legs, and that's keeping me warm. But the wind is riffling through my hair and freezing my head. Why couldn't a cowl be part of my costume, too? They wonder why I'm always the one with a cold in the winter. Because I'm the one with nothing on my head!

Actually, I shouldn't complain. Alfred's got no hat and no hair.

"Well, wherever Batman is, it has to be warmer."

Alfred is gazing up at the brewing blizzard. "I fear the weather may interfere with t he clarity of the projection."

"I wouldn't worry too much. The snow will make for poor visibility anyway." All people need to see is a dark outline of a man-bat, it could even be a cardboard cut-out.

We are standing on top of one of the highest buildings in this area in Gotham. "From here we can project the image on top of half a dozen buildings."

The police scanner in one of the compartments on my right shoulder crackled to life. "All units in downtown area...one-nineteen on number One Industrial Boulevard..."

"One-nineteen!" My line is wrapped around a pipe on top of a nearby building already. "That's a suicide attempt!" I'm on my way.

* * *

Alfred watched Robin toss his line instinctively and step off the rooftop.

"Master Robin! What about the--" but Robin was gone. "Oh, bother." Alfred would just have to set up the hologram alone. In the freezing cold. Well, after all, what did he expect Robin to do? Let someone die while they set up some image of Batman? No, of course not. Alfred just wished Batman were here to go and save the one-nineteen or whatever while Robin finished up with the hologram. But if Batman were here, they wouldn't need a hologram at all. And Alfred could go home and make tea for when they got home. Or get ice packs and bandages and rubbing alcohol, more likely. Oh, if only he could have seen this coming as a young man when he first came to Thomas and Martha Wayne. He would have stayed in England.

No, he wasn't sure that was true at all.

* * *

There she is, on top of the billboard on top of the TransCon Airlines building, the tallest building in this part of the country. I can hear her screaming even over the howl of the wind and the wail of the sirens.

Sounds like she's changed her mind about jumping.

Beautiful girl. I wonder what she had to jump about. She looks like a model, tall and thin with long blonde hair. She's got that artsy look about here, even in the clothes she's wearing. She's wearing a dress and boots. No coat. Geez, isn't she freezing? Then again, I guess you don't worry about that sort of thing when you're trying to die.

She's out of reach of the ladders on the fire trucks. Only a maniac would try a rescue in a helicopter in this weather. There isn't even a window on this face of the building. How did she even get out here?

I toss my line around one of the lights on the top of the billboard and swing across. I have to come in sideways or I'll smack face into the billboard. I lower myself carefully onto the snow and ice covered ledge not twenty feet from the screaming young woman. She sees me. She doesn't recognize me as a good guy. Or maybe she does. She's just scared out of her wits right now, and she's whimpering with fear and inching away from me.

"Just stay right there, Ma'am," I call to her, my hands extended to gentle her. No good. She screams and starts to run from me.

"No! Stay there!" I can see the ice under where her boots have scattered the powdery snow. She's slipping with every step. And I'm running after her.

* * *

"That kid's got his work cut out for him," one of the rescue squad commented to the fireman standing next to him. The fireman squinted up to the far top of the building.

"Must be crazy. Who is he?"

"It's that Robin kid," the rescue squad man answered.

"Geez. Where's Batman?"

"Must be around here somewhere," commented a man dressed in a telephone repairman's uniform. "Where there's Robin, there's Batman."

* * *

"The Boy Wonder again," The Joker seethed, peering out from under the brim of his telephone repairman's cap at the similarly dressed mook who had just reported a bird sighting. "I didn't want the Bat and the Brat around just yet." Joker tilted his long chin upward to look for the junior member of the Dynamic Duo. "I know I killed Robin. Why won't he stay dead?" He turned back to his men. "This little brouhaha is not going according to plan. The decoy was for the police, not the caped partypoops."

Joker was quiet for a moment, working hard on his next thought. "Perhaps Batman and his fledgling will provide even more of a diversion! An even larger opening night for our bidding thespian. And in all this chaos," Joker ripped the hat from his head, "no one even noticed a gang of telephone repairmen sneaking into the phone company."

"So what's the gag, Joker?" a blond man with a gold earring looked up from his position squatted on the floor in front of his toolbox. "Why're we at the telephone company, anyway?"

"This is just phase one of my plan to turn Gotham into a hell of technology-inspired madness! With the help of these schematics," Joker pulled a rolled-up sheaf of papers from inside his jacket, "drawn by our good friend Osgood, we will turn this town upside-down! We cross a wire here, we boggle a cable there, knit one, purl two, and a tangled web we weave!"

Joker pulled the front panel off one of the units, revealing a tangle of wiring and blinking lights. "We just follow the directions and it's simple as A-B-Z! Heh heh heh."

* * *

Alfred had managed to move all of the equipment over to the other side of the L-shaped rooftop he was on, and he had a clear view of Robin and the suicidal young woman.

"This is most certainly a large enough audience for the holographic Batman to make an effective appearance," he muttered to himself. Remembering his days onstage in small theatres in England, he added, "The show must go on."

He aimed the projectors at a building two rooftops over from Robin. If he projected Batman any closer, people would begin to wonder why he wasn't helping Robin as long as he was so close to the situation.

* * *

I've gotta stop her! She's screaming at the top of her lungs and with every step she risks slipping off the edge.

"PLEASE stop!!! I'm here to help!"

It's no use, she doesn't even hear me.

"Ah!" My foot slips out from under me and I fall to my knee, but now I'm up and running again. Carefully. She can't go much further, the ledge ends in thirty or so feet!

* * *

Armed with welders, electric screwdrivers, and penlights, Joker and his men are busily rerouting every line they can reach.

"The good professor has designed a series of quadruple-blind mazes of telephone connections that'll take the phone folks a year to unravel!"

"Geez, shouldn't we be gettin' lost? The Batman's out there, remember?"

Joker raised a finger to his lips. "All in good time, Bones, all in good time."

* * *

As we approach the corner of the building, I can see that the ledge continues around the corner. At her velocity, though, she's not going to make the turn on this ice.

"Stop!"

Her boot slips. Her foot goes over the edge. She follows it.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"

"Oh my god!" Now's the time for that quick thinking I'm so well trained in. Hours of practice with the baterang should pay off now. I yank it from my utility belt and hurl it down after her. I've gotta catch her around the boot. A two ton test line would cut her in half around the waist. She only outweighs me by maybe fifteen pounds.

Before all the slack pulls tight and yanks me off the ledge right with her, I'd better anchor myself. I can still feel the line unraveling from my belt. I snap the end segment of my bo at the tightest angle I can manage and hook it around one of the lamp posts high above my head. I would really like to bend my staff completely in half and hold both ends, but the post is too high over my head. I'd never reach it at only half the length of my bo.

Whoa...

There's the end of the slack, and she just pulled my feet off the edge! Man, I wonder if this is hurting her as much as it's hurting me. Her full weight swings from my belt. She's starting to swing back in towards the building. I hope she keeps parallel with the wall. There's nothing I can do if she smacks into it. I manage to get both my feet back up on the ledge, but she's swinging too widely for me to keep any kind of balance. On the swing back, she pulls me down again. My arms feel like they're being pulled out of the sockets. But if I let go now, we'll both go down. Her swings are losing arc, which is helping a little, and the fire ladders are climbing up to her. She's within their reach now. I really would have preferred to climb up to the rooftop with her, or swing to a lower roof, and then take the stairs. It feels like the fire ladders are rising in slow motion. And on her first few swings, they miss her.

"_Uuhnngh!_" they just grabbed her and pulled. Have they forgotten that she's attached to me? I feel the line slacken and I can get a grip. I pull my left foot back up onto the ledge and let go of my bo. I drop to my knees. All my joints feel like a rag doll's. Better start raveling up this line. I press the button on top of my belt compartment and hold it down. It starts reeling in like a tape measure. The baterang folds in half to fit into the compartment and I snap it shut. I take a few deep breaths as I watch them carry the girl down the ladders to a waiting ambulance. She's not screaming anymore. I hope she just fainted and isn't in shock or anything. I think I'm okay now. I'll just breathe here for a few minutes, just until I see her safely in the ambulance...

* * *

_Responses to Reviews:_

_GhostNinja85 – Ooh. I haven't read that yet either. I'll look around for it ï _


	10. This Town Needs An Enema

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

_Author's Note: Just when I was doing SO well with keeping updated in a timely manner, I catch the fever that was going around :P I apologize for the delay, I'll try to keep up better now._

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - This Town Needs An Enema**

"A _be-oo-tiful_ night's labor, my felonious fellows! Remind me to put you down for overtime!" Joker had his arms spread wide, and his voice high and loud.

"Anybody seen the Batman?" Bones glanced around nervously, as if ready to hush The Joker. But he would never dare.

"He's still working the other side of the street," Joker didn't worry or lower his voice at all.

Standing nearby, a young man with dark hair pointed to the nearest building top. "Hey! He is here!"

"What'd'ya 'spect? With Robin here, Batman couldn't be far behind," a fatherly looking man commented to the younger man.

"Rats! The flying rodent finally makes an appearance," The Joker tore his hat from his head and reached his open hand behind him. "Hand me something lethal, boys! I want to say howdy to ol' long ears! Gotta make the best of a bad situation!"

Joker felt a semi-automatic being pressed into his palm. He opened fire without aiming or thinking, only laughing. As a barrage of bullets flew towards Batman, Joker waved his men back. "To the truck, my illegal beagles! I'll deal with tall, dark and gruesome on my own!" Joker was shouting in joy. A long, frightening laugh spurted continuously from him.

The holographic image of Batman flickered but remained as bullets went right through it. Perplexed, The Joker stopped firing. Atop a building not a block away, Alfred quickly shut the image down. It was too late. The Joker already knew it was only an image. But what he didn't know was why.

* * *

A laugh followed by automatic gunfire. It's gotta be The Joker. I think I'm fully recovered from having a woman hung from my utility belt, but even in top form, am I ready for this? That poor woman on the ledge wasn't a suicide at all. That's why she was so terrified. It was a setup. She was a player in The Joker's sick little drama. A distraction. But from what? People look no bigger than specks from up here. I've got to get down there where the bullets were fired. I hate guns.

My batarang is already wrapped around a chimney pipe on a shorter building across the street. This is not for fun now. I can see a purple suit and green hair. The man below me killed the last person to wear my costume. the man below me has nearly killed Batman a hundred times. I feel pinching in my right hand and realize that I've balled my hand into a very tight fist. I have to be careful not to let my anger throw me off.

My anger goes with the releasing of my fist, but my terror comes with that. Maybe Batman will be back soon. Maybe he should be the one to—

If I screw this one up, I'll be dead.

For a moment, I can only hear silence, even though there are crowds of people below, ambulance sirens, everything. The snow seems to be muffling everything up here. Suddenly, I push off and swing down towards the next lowest roof.

I'm just going to have to not screw up.

* * *

He doesn't see me coming. Down on the street, The Joker is still holding his weapon, staring at where the hologram had been. I get him right in the back with both feet. He goes down, loosing another few bullets from his gun. They hit no one. In one swift movement, I pull the bo out of the back of my belt and press the button that extends it instantly. The Joker is turning himself over slowly to a sitting position. Even when on the ground he looks bigger than me. Standing up, he must be at least a whole foot taller than me.

"As I surmised," The Joker rubbed the back of his neck, still sitting in the snow, "you're not the same Robin. The new costume is _tres chic_."

I've had enough of this. But he isn't moving. I'm not going to hit a man when he's lying on the ground, and the police should be closing in any minute now. Any minute now...

"A bit of a runt, aren't we? Kicked out of the nest too soon?" Joker is looking me up and down. Great. Anybody else want to comment on my size?

"On your feet, Joker. It's over." I sound a lot more confident than I feel. A lot more. Could it really have been this easy to catch The Joker?

"What's your hurry, Birdboy?" He really knows how to push all my buttons, doesn't he? Like calling me runt and Birdboy. Joker's still sitting on the ground and it's taking all my restraint not to smack him with my staff. Why's he just sitting there? "Why not stop and smell the flowers?"

_Whoa!_ A stream of green, fizzing acid sprays from his lapel flower. I yank my cape across my face and turn away from him. That was way too close. By the time I turn back around, Joker's up and his cane is whistling towards my face.

"Perhaps you won't mind if I raise a little cane?" I start to duck, but I'm not fast enough. The blow meant for my chin hits me in the mouth and the bottom corner of my mask. I can feel blood from the corner of my lip and from where the edge of my mask was crushed into my temple... I can't get balance... The blow to my temple must have dizzied me... The ground comes up to meet me. I'm on my hands and knees in the snow. I spit blood into the slush.

"I'm quite the cut-up, as I'm sure your benighted buddy has told you!"

I hear a silvery _sshhhing!_ like a sword being drawn. Where'd he get a sword?

"Did he tell you how I killed the last Robin?"

Dazed... His voice is coming from a million miles away...

"Took a real whipping! With a crowbar! Then... BLAMO! He blowed up real good!"

I pull myself to my knees and wipe some of the blood away with the back of my glove. Now I see where the sword came from. The Joker uncapped his cane, and the sword was _inside_. Unfortunately, I'm seeing three swords, and three Jokers. I blink to clear my vision, but all I can see are slowly rotating Jokers and bright, moving lights.

"Blew him right out of his booties! Ha ha!" The Joker's cackling hysterically now. I have to admit, the combination of my disorientation and Joker's description of Jason Todd's death has me just a little terrified. He raises his sword. I can barely see... Too many lights...

"Make like a statue, creep!" The police. Lights were flashlights. Got Joker surrounded. Have to stand up...

"Oh, pshaw!" Joker caps his sword again. "I prefer to make like a tree..."

He's reaching in his pocket. Pulling out some pellet. Probably gas. Throwing it at me. Green gas explodes all around me.

"...and leave!" Joker runs off cackling maniacally.

Hold my breath... Move away... Gas is probably lethal... Hear the police gunshots and ricochets. They didn't get him. Worse yet, neither did I.

I plant my bo in the snow and lean on it.

"You okay, kid?" a police officer touches me lightly on the shoulder. Any harder and he could have knocked me over in the state I'm in right now.

"He got away, right?" I ask him.

"Only thing left of that psycho is a ton of discharged weapons forms to fill out."

Then, no. I'm not okay.

"Got a coupla squad units chasin' him," another officer adds over my other shoulder.

"You sure you don't want a ride somewhere, kid?" the first police officer asks me. I bet no one ever asked Batman if he wanted a ride somewhere, kid.

"No, I have a ride. Thanks." Yeah, I'm not sounding like Batman's partner. I'm sounding like a kid in a Halloween costume.

"Nice effort, Robin," the officer adds as I stagger away.

"Sure," is all I can manage. Good thing no one asked me where Batman was while Joker was kicking my tail. That would have been fun to explain.

* * *

"Oh, Osgood!" Joker leaned on the back of the chair Dr. Osgood Pellinger was firmly tied to, "the mayhem we shall cause! With your program to dismantle the infrastructure of Gotham tucked snugly away in t he bowels of the phone company, such glorious pranks we shall pull! And no one can stop us, thanks to your brilliance and my talent for the diabolical."

Joker turned and sat on the panel, massaging the back of his neck. "Not even that crimefighting sparrow who's made such a pest of himself!"

Joker stood bolt upright. "Hold on a tick! I just now remembered! Where was Batman? What was the deal with that optical illusion I shot holes in? Who is zooming whom? Could it be that Robin is... home alone?"

* * *

_Responses to Reviews:_

_Eloihann – By the time I got around to buying the comics of this series, I could only find 1-3, and four was sold out in my home town. So when the trade came out, I finally knew the end ;)_

_giveGodtheglory – Thanks! You too!_


	11. The Latest Score

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - The Latest Score**

"You've got me under your skin! More precisely, you've got me in your mainframes, dearest Gotham!"

The Joker's grinning face filled the screen of the television set in Mayor Hill's office.

"I've installed a little program of mine into the city's computer systems. maybe you've already started noticing the results? Let's review, gentlemen. Gotham's finest, their police force, have had a hundred bucks deducted from their paychecks 'to help the city meet its debt'. And one thousand city firemen received layoff notices in the mail today. Boy, are they feeling burned! And a five hundred percent property tax surcharge was levied on all city businesses yesterday. A big kick to their bottom line! Oh, and with most of the city's power blacked out, we have so many fires because people are using almost any means to stay warm! And I'm sure you saw on the news just moments ago about the welfare mom who got busted for ten thousand dollars in parking fines. The punchline? She doesn't own a car! Get it? Har har har!!!"

"Shut it off," Mayor Hill commanded from across his office. "It doesn't get any better on the second viewing."

Sergeant Holmes pressed "STOP" on the VCR. "What's The Joker want?"

"He hasn't said yet," added Lieutenant Gryssom.

"Where did we get the tape?" asked Hill's legal assistant.

Commissioner Gordon was staring out the window. "It was delivered to Police Headquarters with two dozen lilies."

"And a sympathy card commiserating over the death of Gotham City," Hill added, sinking into his chair. "My aching butt. His little computer virus is killing the city by inches. Gotham Light and Power has blackouts all over the grid. The Police and Fire departments are threatening strikes. I got every civil rights group in town taking legal action and picketing. Businesses are packing to move to the Sunbelt. The switchboard downstairs looks like the Fourth of July!"

Gryssom spread his hands. "Why don't we tell the public that The Joker is behind all this?"

"And admit he has us by the short hairs?" Hill turned an incriminating finger on the Commissioner. "Gordon, this is your job! Use whatever means necessary to shut this creep down!"

"Yes, sir," Gordon answered evenly. Then more quietly added, "I've got a few experts to talk to first." Gordon hoped there would be a few. Robin was the hacker extraordinaire, but Batman was the hero of Gotham City.

* * *

I was all the way on the other side of town when the signal was lit almost fifteen minutes ago. And it's snowing again. I hope Gordon hasn't given up and left. Nah, he's been known to wait there for over an hour on occasion.

But I know he's not going to be happy to see me without Batman again.

This time he doesn't even wait for me to land on the roof.

"You're alone again," he looks disappointed in me. Hey, what the heck am I supposed to do? I'm doing my best.

"He's been held up outside Gotham, Commissioner. You'll just have to settle for me."

"I'm not sure--"

Oh, that's it. "You don't have a choice. The Joker has this city on the run. You can't turn down any help that's offered. I'll do what you tell me, Commissioner. You tell me to stay out of this, I will. But Batman taught me everything I know about being a detective. And I taught him everything he knows about hacking. I could be useful. I promise I could. You tell me what you want."

Gordon sighs. "You're right, of course. The city's computer experts are baffled by all this. They can trace the virus back to the main terminals at the phone company. The Joker's set up mazes and traps in the system, fail-safes and self-destructs. I don't pretend to understand it all. This prank could plague the city for years. The only way to purge the system is to shut it down for a week and hunt down the virus."

"Byte by byte. Great." I do understand all this virus-hunting stuff. They'll never find it. Not without setting off some time bomb virus or some Trojan Horse virus, more likely. Besides, shutting down the city for a week would kill it. "That would be like putting a tourniquet around someone's neck because their head was bleeding."

This is definitely not going to be easy. The only way to find that virus is to know, before we start looking, where it is. And even then we may not find it easily. The only people who know where it is are The Joker and his gang, and Osgood Pellinger. I think my best bet is still Osgood Pellinger. And I have no idea at all where he is, and no idea where to start looking. I could start looking for that computer virus and have more luck. I have nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just have to wait for the Commissioner to release that video tape they received to me, and wait for Joker to make a move. I hate waiting.

* * *

Joker stood in front of a haphazard stack of television sets, all tuned to different channels, all reporting on the havoc he was wreaking on Gotham City.

"Thankew! Thankew! And thankew!" he bowed with distinct polish. "You're beautiful. I mean that. Riots! Strikes! Thousands homeless! It's all so epic!" he turned to his men. "There's talk of recalling the Mayor! Others are moving to make the whole city a Federal Disaster Area! And at the center of it all is little old me!" He looked so modest and flattered by the implication.

"Old long-ears didn't bother to show last night. Just that not-so-special effect. Has to be a reason for that, no? Apparently he's out of town and out of my life, and only Junior Birdboy to watch the store!" There was that evilly ecstatic look in his eyes that people had come to know and fear.

"I dominate the airwaves! I'm a ratings bonanza! I'm the main boob on the tube!"

"Yeah, 'cept for the Bowl Game, boss," Bones added, unaware of any offense.

"Who spoils my reception?" Joker turned and leered directly at Bones.

"S'true," Bones hoisted a slice of greasy pepperoni pizza towards an advertisement for the game on TV, "The Hammer Bowl is bein' played at Gotham Stadium tomorrow. Big money's on the Metropolis Machine."

"Big money?" Joker hated being upstaged by football. "You want to talk big money? Smart money's on me, boys. I'll give you the Gotham Giants and a skillion points! I just figured out how we're going to deliver our ransom note."

* * *

The game's already started. I missed the kickoff. I missed the whole first quarter and most of the second. Overslept. I'm allowed to do that on Sunday. Especially since I've been chasing a cold Joker trail for over a week. Alfred's making dinner. Gotham's losing. Badly. What did you expect when we're playing against the city that's home to Superman? Honestly, I'm not even too into seeing the game this year. I've got tons of other things to worry about. But in honor of the game, I'm wearing my Gotham Giants sweatshirt. The one with the cutoff sleeves. I've got a white button down shirt under it, but Alfred still says it make me "look like a rag-a-muffin". Whatever that is. I'm just gonna hang out in the kitchen with Alfred until dinner's ready. Then I'm going to hang with Ives and the gang for a little while, and when the sun goes down, I'll get ready for another long night. Although I don't know what I'll spend it doing or looking for.

Alfred has the TV volume down lower than usual. Maybe he didn't want to wake me up. But then again, my room is a long way from here, I'd never have heard him.

_**"...nearing the end of the first half on a cold afternoon here at Gotham Stadium..."**_

"Anything else on The Joker, Alfred?"

"No, Tim. And I've had the television set on all day. Perhaps the Clown Prince has decided to take Sunday off."

"Not in this lifetime!" I pull open a couple of cabinet doors. I don't know what I'm looking for, I'm not really hungry, and this is the cabinet that only has dishes anyway. I think I'm really looking for clues about The Joker and my body feels the need to help out by physically looking into things. Yeah, we've been studying Freud in Intro to Psych for the past two weeks.

I wander over to the TV and stare at it. Gotham's still losing.

_**"...Gotham is taking a licking here..."**_

Wait. Alfred turned this on?

"Football, Alfred? I'm surprised."

"I haven't had time to change the channel," Alfred is slicing a cucumber. "What a brutal and dull sport American football is. Not at all the game ruggers and soccer are."

_**"...as the Machine rolls on..."**_

Yeah, right. If that's true, then...

"Then why don't I put something else on?"

"No!" Alfred reaches out to stop me, then composes himself. "I mean... I'm mildly curious to see how the quarter ends."

"Sure." Heh-heh.

_**"...Hey, what's this? Has the halftime entertainment started early?..."**_

"What's happening there, Tim?"

"I don't know, let me turn it up." All the TV cameras are focusing in on the scoreboards. They all say "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA". This does not look good.

_**"...Looks like a glitch in the system as the scoreboard graphics go wacky. I've never seen anything like this, Paul..."**_

Suddenly, on the right side of the scoreboard, is the image of The Joker decked head to toe in Giants apparel. The left side of the screen still reads "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" and it's scrolling. Oh no.

**_"Howdy sports fans and athletic supporters everywhere!"_** I feel like punching him. I'm only seeing a screen of him on a screen, two degrees of separation, when I wish I had him in front of me in person. Although I might not wish that when it happens...

_** "I'm here to bring a grin to the gridiron, to carry a giggle to the goalposts! And I'm also here for business. I have a little proposition for the city fathers, a little remuneration in return for which I'll stop my computerized naughtiness. All I want from Gotham is one billion dollars." **_

...A BILLION DOLLARS?

"He really is mad," Alfred's little chopping sounds had ceased when The Joker made his ransom demand.

I'm finding it hard to breathe. "And we haven't even made one step towards stopping him." Somehow, somewhere, this whole thing got way out of control, and it's become my fault. Batman leaves for a couple of weeks and Gotham City dies in the hands of Robin, his helpless, useless kid partner. This is not looking good at all.

_** "I want it in one week, pickup to be detailed later. If not, then I really put the screws to this burg. Much like the visiting players are doing to your home team! And! I want the money delivered by Batman."**_

I turn the TV off. What am I going to do? He wants the money in a week, and Batman's not due back for another week and a half!

"The city doesn't have a billion dollars. They could never pay that."

"The money isn't what he wants, Tim," Alfred isn't looking at me. And he's speaking slowly and carefully. "He asked to have the money delivered by Batman. He's called your bluff."

* * *

Mayor Hill swept a file full of papers from his desk in anger, scattering them across the floor between himself and a pacing, smoking Commissioner Gordon. "This city has been near default for years and now it's near total collapse and The Joker wants a billion? In cash? He must be nuts!"

Gordon tried to suppress the urge to comment on how obvious it was that of course The Joker was nuts, but he couldn't. "That's exactly the problem, Mayor."

* * *


	12. Make Me A Will Save

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Make Me A Will Save**

There's not much I can do until The Joker lays out his plans for picking up his payoff. And Alfred insists that I get out of the house and try to forget about things for a while.

Ives lives in the suburbs of Gotham, in a little two-story red brick house. His garage is a one-car, and is not attached to the house itself. The driveway has been laboriously shoveled with a little tin shovel, still leaning against the stoop railing outside. His street is excessively long, and his house has a number: 2910. Up where the Waynes and Drakes live, we don't have numbers, just "Wayne Manor" and "Drake Mansion", et cetera. To me, this is cramped but quaint. To Ives, it's heaven.

We're spread out on his kitchen table. The cardboard _Warlocks & Warriors_ maze is standing and we've got a bag of chips and cans of soda circulating. Everyone's got their little notepads and pencils, little plastic figurines, and Ives has the Warlock Master's Handbook.

"I want Drake for Game Master!" he hands the book to me. That means I don't get to play, because I already know all the traps and surprises.

"Yeah!" Hudson adds. "You haven't played in a while. It should be your turn."

I have no real objection. I stand the book up in front of me, opened at a 45 degree angle, so it's freestanding, and I'm the only one who can read inside it. According to the rules, I can follow the scenario the book dictates, or I can add in my own twists. I can also add in NFC's, or Non-Functioning Characters, to help them along. Maybe I can get my friends to help me with my Joker problem without knowing they're doing it...

"So what's the scenario, Tim? An invisible fortress? A dungeon full of werewolves?" Hudson is very impatient. I've only had the book for ten seconds.

"_Most_ mundane, Hudman. How about a shopping mall with shape-changing serial killers?" Sometimes I think Ives has been playing this game too long.

"Shut up, Ives, and have another soda. Let the man think."

_Thank you, Hernandez_. I still haven't said a word. How do I go about making the scenario like The Joker's and mine?

"Okay, how about this..." I begin softly. The bickering abruptly ceases and all eyes are on me.

"There's a land haunted by a mad wizard. The King who rules this place is away at wars in a far kingdom. His son, the Prince, is left alone to fight this lunatic magician. But the kid needs help. This crazy wizard serves chaos. He's poisoned the magic that holds this land together and protects it. He's turned it against the kingdom. The object of the game is to find the wizard's lair and kill him."

Ives speaks immediately. "If this psycho spellmaker controls all the mystical energies of this place, then all of them _flow to_ him."

Energy... energy to operate this trick of The Joker's... Why didn't I think of that?

"Ives is right," Hudson adds. "Follow the magic and you find his lair."

"Looks like we've found a glitch in your scenario, Tim." Hernandez is a little disappointed at my easily defeated wizard. I'm usually better with scenarios.

Energy. Energy! The Joker's got to be using tons of it! If I could hack my way into Gotham Light and Power's main terminal, maybe I could find out where a majority of the city's power is going. Follow the magic and you find his lair! Follow the power and I find The Joker!

"Tim? _Tim?_ Earth to Tim Drake," Ives waves his hand in front of my eyes.

"Huh? Uh, I have to go," I jump up and pull my coat on. My friends are not going to like this.

"But, we're just getting started!" Ives looks worried.

"I- I'm sorry. I just remembered something I have to do." I'm out the door before they can try to convince me to stay. This feels awful, but what else can I do?

* * *

"Well, we can't play with just the three of us," Hernandez knocked over part of the maze in frustration. Why was it that Tim was always ditching them?

"Maybe our bud Drake has decided he doesn't like hangin' with the Gotham Heights Geek Squad," Hudson was hurt.

"I don't think that's it, Hudmeister," Ives stared pensively at the door Tim had just run through. "I think our boy has some _serious_ problems." Ives saw through Tim's little scenario. He was subtly asking his friends for help. But with what? The Prince of course was Tim, and the King had to be Mr. Drake. And he's in a coma, Tim called it being "away at wars in a far kingdom". But what about poisoned magic and an evil wizard? Who's the evil wizard? The man who killed Tim's mom and paralyzed his dad? No, that couldn't be. That wacko was dead, right? Were the memories getting to him? Could the evil wizard be Tim's temporary guardian, Mr. Wayne? No, they always seemed to get along great. And Mr. Wayne was away on business. Who was Tim's evil wizard?

* * *

God knows what my friends thought of my little escape earlier this evening. But now I can't think about that. I'm not Tim Drake right now. I look down at my red tunic with the gold "R" attached to remind me just who I am right now. I'm going to be spending a long night in front of the Batcomputer. Alfred is standing next to me, trying to drag from me the reason for my excitement, and possibly the exact new lead I have.

"Explain this to me again, Tim. What does this have to do with Warriors and Wombats?"

Very funny. "_Warlocks and Warriors_, Alfred. I got the idea when my friends and I were playing a game. It's not just a virus, Alfred, that's only part of it. The Joker's got a central computer somewhere in Gotham. He's keyed into every system using the phone company's main terminal. He's got Dr. Osgood Pellinger programming and jamming and using a supercomputer of some kind. Maybe even an existing system slaved to their pirate base. They have to be drawing power!" I realized that thanks to my friends. "I'll scan the grids for power draw from the phone company and Gotham L & P and track them down. All I have to do is put the Batcave's two crays to work to make us a profile of power output over the last seventy-two hours."

Alfred's lost. "I'm of no use to you, Tim. I believe I'll retire."

"See you in the morning."

I'm up against defenses designed by a master computer hacker. But he's got to sleep sometime. I'm coming for you, Joker.

I've been through every program and technique I know to crack this. And I've been at it for almost five hours. It's almost three in the morning. And tomorrow's Monday. I may end up going to school on no sleep. What else is new?

Wait. What's this. I get a challenge. A password. I set the mighty crays to work with Batman's own cryptography program. A few seconds...

I'm in. The password was "pratfall". Cute. I don't get far when I hit a menu, a choice of dooms.

**1. Key To The City**

**2. Bag O' Tricks**

**3. Brain Busters**

**4. Bats In The Belfry**

**5. Crazyhouse**

Below it, it says "Howdy!" It's a shell. I have to get inside, get through the challenges. Obviously, The Joker helped Pellinger write this. It looks like it was written for me. I've still got a few gauntlets to run before I'm into his system. I choose Crazyhouse (where I wish The Joker still was) and wait to see what happens next.

Huh?

**A. It's the plumber!**

**B. He thinks he knows you!**

**C. Well, she climbed out on the roof...**

**D. I just saw the Pope on a tricycle!**

Punchlines. They're punchlines to old jokes. _Aha._ And I know the jokes that go with some of these.

The hours go by and I'm lost in the game I'm playing. No, it's not a game. That keeps slipping my mind.

Bingo. I'm in. The program is responding to me.

**"WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"** it asks me.

"That's my secret," I type. "Tell me how I can find you." This is a really sophisticated program. About now, I should get a set of schematics on a system routed from the phone company.

**"I ALREADY KNOW YOUR NAME."**

What's this?

**"YOUR NAME IS ROBIN."**

I hear my chair crash to the floor and realize that I've leapt out of it. I've been hustled! The screen fills quickly with letters, flooding it, just like on the football scoreboard:

**"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"**

I thought I was invading The Joker's program, but he was invading mine. The Batcave's security safeguards are compromised. The system is violated. Have to shut it down. All of it. Have to move!

I snap myself out of the state of shock I've been stuck in for approximately 1.5 seconds. I grab the master switch and yank it down. There is a sound like a plane passing overhead and out of hearing. The entire system goes dark and the constant, quiet hum of electricity decrescendos to silence. The Joker wins again. The brain of the Batcave is dead. I sigh and lean against the console.

Now what?

* * *

"NO! We almost had him!" Joker pounded his fist on the console Osgood Pellinger was slaving at. Still tied to his chair and drugged senseless, Dr. Pellinger had almost gained complete access to the Batcomputer. "He shut down before we could load a virus into the Batcomputer! Egad! This brat's getting on my nerves! _I'm_ supposed to be the only wild card in this deck!"

"So what do we do now, Boss?" Bones had been pacing back and forth, bored with the incomprehensible techno-babble.

"We stay with the program. Birdboy's out of the picture, and making him dump his system is icing on the cake! Such a shame we couldn't stay on line long enough to find out the whereabouts of Batman's little hideyhole. Tsk. Hm. Where do you think Batman is?" Joker ruffled Osgood's hair. "A gloomy guy like him would never go on vacation. Perhaps he's injured. Maybe he slipped in the BAT-tub! Haw!"

Joker turned to his men, his mood immediately changing, "Enough idle speculation! Let's get busy!"

* * *


	13. Good Doggie

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Good Doggie**

"During this morning's rush hour, the traffic lights went crazy and we had gridlock and fender benders all over town. Release orders came down for a few dozen prisoners being held over for trial in city lock-up. Most of them were let out before the error was discovered. Phones are ringing all over town. When you pick up, you get a tape loop of The Joker laughing. Power to hospitals had been cut. The homeless shelters are filling. The police are at half strength. On top of that, we have a major storm system looking to dump two feet of snow on us in the next forty-eight hours. I've called the governor for help, and we're going to declare Gotham City a disaster area."

There was nothing Commissioner Gordon could say to Mayor Hill's announcement. After all, what could they do? They were powerless. Completely powerless.

* * *

It's time I started acting and stopped re-acting. I'm supposed to be a detective. 

I'm on top of that four-story apartment building above Osgood Pellinger's house. It's already started to snow. Pellinger's house has been dark since that night, when The Joker nabbed him right under my nose. I might have missed something. Something that might lead me to Pellinger and The Joker.

I swing down to the front walk and climb through the yellow "crime scene" tape into the house. Furniture is covered with white sheets, boxes are packed and left in the hall. A layer of dust covers everything downstairs. It's like no one's lived here for years. Dr. Pellinger's office is on the second floor. I climb the steps. The upstairs looks lived in enough. Pellinger sure is a packrat for books, they're stacked up everywhere, no bookshelves are empty, and there's more of them stacked along the walls and in the corners.

His bedroom is just a desk, a cot, and more books. Nice old place like this, and he stayed in just a few rooms. A lonely man who lived only through his work. I don't see anything here that tells me who Osgood Pellinger is.

Three hours of searching and I don't find anything here that helps me. Pretty lame idea of mine.

_Wait._ What's this?

There's a shoebox on a high shelf in his closet. It's wrapped round with half a dozen rubber bands. I take the box down and pull off the rubber bands. It's full of photos and a dog collar. The collar is red and says "Pixie". The photos are all of a kid and a dog. The kid could be Pellinger. It certainly looks like him. The back of the photo has writing on it. Let's see, it says, "Ozzie and Pixie, summer house, '61". This could be something. But I have no idea what. Hm. I'll just take one of these with me. He'll never miss it.

* * *

"Clear this area! I want a one-block perimeter! NOW! Use those trucks to block the streets!" the bomb squad leader called from the top of City Hall's steps. People dressed in black and wearing helmets rushed around carrying out his orders. 

Men poured into the building and civilians poured out. "Clear this floor! This is not a drill! We need this floor evacuated NOW!" cried one of the men into a megaphone.

"Which way to the Mayor's office?" another man demanded of a nervous- looking clerk who was pushed aside in the hallway.

"Thuh- thuh- that way," the clerk pointed, trembling.

"Mister Mayor, where's the gizmo?" the squad leader called to the Mayor who was standing outside his office.

"On my secretary's desk. It came with the morning mail."

Hill's secretary stood next to him, a young blonde woman in her mid-twenties, looking a little shaken, but only a little. Hill had that nerves-of-steel look on his face.

"Fletch! Set up a perimeter! I'm on one-oh. You're slack man, Ricci."

"Yo!" Ricci yelled and got behind the leader. Fletch jogged back down the hall.

"We thought it looked suspicious," Hill explained as the men scrutinized the brown cardboard box wrapped in twine and addressed in black permanent marker as "To Hizzoner".

"You did the right thing, sir. But maybe you'd better get to someplace safe," Ricci was backing Hill down the hall.

"There's no place in Gotham like that, son," Hill said. He would stand outside the door, but would not leave the vicinity. He shooed his secretary down the hall past Perimeter Man Fletch.

"Okay," the leader whispered, delicately as if not to set the bomb off with loud words, "let's see what we got here..."

He carefully slit one of the pieces of twine.

The box burst open with a loud popping sound.

_"WHOA!"_

The squad leader and Ricci fell backwards away from the box.

It was a jack-in-the-box with a Joker-like head on top. The head was bouncing on a spring and it had a hand that held a rolled up piece of paper in it. I bounced slightly and innocently. Everyone else was silent. No one had breathed yet.

"_Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy_..." Ricci muttered, still trying to regain the strength in his legs.

Squad leader was up and crawling back towards the box. Stupid trick.

"Now what?" Hill had reentered his office upon hearing the yells. He pulled the paper from the jack-in-the-box's hand. It was a Christmas Wish List from The Joker. "My aching butt."

* * *

You'd think the Commissioner would keep a closer eye on us with our tendency to appear and disappear, but he knows I won't leave until I have all the information I came for. His back is to me, he's sitting at his desk riffling through papers. 

"He's made his demands clear. He wants the cash loaded into a tractor trailer. A red one. He want the truck's radio turned to a frequency he'll communicate to us later."

He stands and turns to face me. I'm here, listening.

"He says if his directions aren't followed to the letter, his next prank will kill hundreds."

"And he wants Batman to be driving the truck," that's the main issue I'm concerned about here. How can I provide Batman?

"That, too. The Joker wants a billion dollars and a face-to-face with Batman. Neither one is possible."

"He knows that." I watch Gordon pace over to the window and stare out.

"This snow would be beautiful if not for all the trouble it's causing us."

"I think I might have a way of finding out where The Joker's hidden cold room is. But we have to draw him out. We'll use the cash and Batman as a lure. Your men will raid the hideout and I'll face The Joker." Face him and then what? Get killed? Yeah, probably. But with any luck, I can take The Joker with me.

"I can't place the fate of this entire city in the hands of an adolescent."

_Ouch!_

"Besides, you've only narrowly escaped death at the hands of The Joker twice now. He'll be expecting you this time."

**_Hey!_**

"If Batman were here--"

"He's not! You know, he didn't pick my name out of a hat for this job! I earned it! I'm not going to be the next Robin to fall victim to The Joker!" I wish I felt as brave as those words sound. But his words were painful. I'm doing all that I can. I can't sit by and wait for Gotham to die because I'm helpless without Batman. I can't. I've got to save this city.

It's not even that Gordon's looking out for me, really. He's just afraid I'm some dumb kid and I'll foul it up. Got to prove him wrong.

Right now, I've got to go home. I'm exhausted and grouchy. I've got to sleep and think of a way to get Batman to deliver a billion dollars to The Joker. In a red truck.

* * *


	14. Jingle Bells, Batman Smells

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Jingle Bells, Batman Smells**

An hour and a half until the truck is due on the bridge for The Joker. I don't know why I'm here. I need someone. I need a shoulder to lean on. I wish I was allowed to have a shoulder to cry on. But I can't cry anymore. I haven't since I first wore this costume.

"I'm alone. Batman is gone. He may be dead for all I know. The Joker's running wild, he has the city by the throat. I'm the only hope that Gotham City has. On top of that, I think I'm failing World Cultures."

The room is dark and I can feel the cold near the window. I cross away from the window and sink into a little metal and vinyl yellow chair in the corner and look at the floor.

"I don't know who else to turn to. I don't know Alfred too well, and he really doesn't know me yet, and he's sleeping anyway. I've been keeping him up late recently. But I needed to talk to someone. I'm going solo against The Joker tonight. He killed Jason Todd, the kid who was Robin before me. Sure, I'm scared. I haven't been able to sleep since The Joker delivered his ultimatum. But what scares me the most is failing. Failing Gotham, failing myself... failing you. But mostly failing Batman. All my friends are worried about their grades and dating and fitting in. Normal teenager stuff. I've got all that _and_ the burden of being the Boy Wonder."

I slump down into the chair and my cape falls over my shoulder, surrounding me in an almost protective motion. It's a good thing no one else can see how pathetic I must look. If only Mom had lived...

"I try to remember that I wanted this. But I never thought of how lonely it would be. I never thought of the price I would have to pay. That's why I came to you."

I'm coming close to crying now. I can feel that tightening in my throat. I kneel at his bedside and take his hand in mine.

"Part of me wishes I could talk to you like this while you were awake, Dad," and I stare at my comatose father, half dead after his brutal torture at the hands of The Obeah Man, breathing intermittently, a monitor beeping next to him with every heartbeat. I think about Mom, lying in her coffin, so quiet, so still. I almost couldn't believe she was real. I kept expecting to see her breathe. I kept remembering waking her up mornings for this or that, and her smiling at me. I kept thinking if I could just wake her up now...

"...and part of me is glad you won't know what happens next."

I shake myself free of my wallowing in self-pity and reminiscing in days that are dead now. I have a city to save.

* * *

"Are you certain of this, Robin?" Alfred is unloading holographic equipment into the Cave. We won't be needing it tonight. 

"As certain as I can be, Alfred. Any plan we use has to be flexible. We don't know what The Joker has up his sleeve. We have to be ready to shift when he shifts." I've got two laptops in my right arm and a modem in my left.

"This is going to be a rather late evening, I suppose."

"It's going to be busy, anyway," I hand the laptops to Alfred. "It's all in the timing. You'll need the laptop, modem and printer."

"I'm not terribly computer literate, I'm afraid," Alfred's staring at the equipment as if it just might bite him if he touched it. I'd thought of this problem already.

"You won't have to be. Just hook up to the payphone like I showed you and run this program," I press the disk into Alfred's hand, "I told you what to look for in response. Now remember that you might have to move around from one payphone to another."

"In the event The Joker and his villains should trace me," Alfred always makes everything sound so classy.

"Exactly. The ransom will draw The Joker out. I'll need you to track down Osgood Pellinger and the hidden cold room. The professor just can't be a willing partner in this. I believe The Joker is using some of his patented psyche-sculpting drugs on Pellinger. I'm really taking a long shot, but that program should get Osgood's attention. Whether he's in any shape to react to it is another problem..."

I enter another section of the Cave, where all the supplies are kept. Alfred is tagging along behind me. I can tell he's feeling a little left behind by all this techno-crime.

"When you get a bite, you relay it to Gordon at Gotham Phone. He'll be waiting to hear from you."

"He and the police will take it from there."

"Right," I assure him. Alfred doesn't want to have any more to do with this than absolutely necessary. I don't blame him. "Then you can wait at our rendez-vous to pick me up." _I wish I could drive I wish I could drive I wish..._ "I'll need one of these costumes," I point at the Batsuits. There's dozens of them. He'll never miss one. Especially not if I save Gotham with it.

I can't disguise myself as Batman, I'm half his height. And Alfred is half his width. And that rules out all the people who are in on our little Bat-secret. I had to come up with a slightly more dangerous plan. A dummy. Then again, if The Joker's plan is what I think it is, a dummy is the safer plan.

_

* * *

"...Siberian Express forcing a storm front ahead of it that is bringing more snow to the greater Gotham area. Look for at least twelve inches overnight. A white Christmas for sure, folks..."_

Mayor Hill was leaning against his desk in his dark office late at night, massaging well-earned knots in his neck muscles while staring at the TV news.

"White Christmas, my aching butt. Look at the smile on that idiot."

The phone rang. "Now what?"

"Mr. Mayor, this is Gordon," Commissioner Gordon's voice came over the staticy telephone line. The Mayor could hear the sounds of a truck engine in the background, along with muffled voices. "We have the truck ready and the driver's set to go. We wait an hour after drop-off and then you radio The Joker."

"Jim, tell me this is going to work out," the Mayor was tired of not running the city anymore. He wanted reassurance. He wanted a guarantee. He knew Gordon couldn't tell him with any truthfulness that he was sure it would work out. Right now, Mayor Hill would settle for a lie. "Tell me Batman can handle this creep and I can get back to the normal craziness of running this town."

"Just think of how much you'd have to worry about if there was a billion dollars of the city's money in this truck. Batman can do this. He's taken The Joker down before."

"Be careful, Jim," and the Mayor hung up the phone.

* * *

Commissioner Gordon snapped his cell phone shut, pocketed it, and turned to look at the snowflakes falling onto the red truck they were filling with newspaper clipped to the size and shape of money. The Mayor didn't know Batman was nowhere to be found. He didn't know that the Commissioner was leaving this up to a fourteen-year-old boy. He didn't know that Robin had never fought The Joker before. He didn't know that The Joker had already killed a Robin. What the Mayor did not know could not hurt the Commissioner. 

"Don't let me down, Robin," he whispered to no one at all.

* * *

"You sure? I don't see anybody on the street," the cop in the driver's seat is glancing nervously around the alleyway they had steered the big red rig into. 

"This is the place."

"I dunno..."

The officer driving the rig flings open the door and hops down from the cab of the truck. "You expected him to be sittin' in the Batmobile eatin' doughnuts and waitin' on us? Come on."

"I just feel funny leavin' a billion dollars on the street in this neighborhood," he follows the driver to the waiting police car a few feet away. I guess the Commissioner didn't tell everyone involved that it was only newspaper, not money. Smart move.

"He's here, don't worry about it. He just don't like people seein' him, is all."

"I guess."

* * *

I hear two car doors close and the motor sounds diminish. I peek over the edge of the rooftop. There's my truck. I drop the case full of tools and wiring to the snow near the cab. In a second I'm next to it. 

I wonder if that cop would be so confident if he knew that it was Robin who'd be watching over the city's money. I don't think so.

I pull the door open and toss the case up onto the driver's seat. The seat is as high as my chest. I hoist myself up and into the cab. The penlight between my teeth is barely enough to light my work as I hook together metal bars and wiring that will operate this huge rig remotely. It's finished in a matter of minutes. Am I good, or am I good?

I scan the skyline for a good anchor for my 'rang. Batman says I'm an equal partner. He believes it. Everyone else but him and Alfred sees me as just a sidekick. Just a kid. The list includes The Joker. He underestimates me. That's my only edge.

I'm above the rig now. Time to take my position near the bridge. The truck will follow me. I hope.

Of course, The Joker's underestimating me is an edge only if I'm not overestimating myself. Way too late to worry about that.

* * *

Bones sat in a folding chair in front of a wall of television sets in The Joker's new hideout. He held a beer in one hand and a greasy buffalo wing in the other. 

_"Mmmmm.... beeeeeeeer..."_ the surround sound on the televisions made Homer sound like he was in the room with them.

_"We interrupt this program to bring a special address for The Joker."_

"Boss!" Bones called for The Joker. "You oughta maybe have a look at this. Must be real important. They in'errupted The Simpsons for it!"

Joker froze in front of the screens, anxiously awaiting the message.

"Boss, you think they're--"

"**_SHHH_**!"

_"I am authorized by my own office and the city council to concede to your demands. As specified, a red truck has been loaded with one billion dollars cash and is awaiting further instructions from you."_ the Mayor's image disappeared and was replaced by the face of Lisa Simpson.

"Oh _frab-ju-ous_ day!" Joker spun around and danced over to where the drugged datacrunching doomsayer was still roped to his chair. "Did you hear, Osgood, my man? Our brilliant scheme has come to fruition!"

Osgood drooled.

"Oh dear. You don't look pleased at all. Perhaps an increase in your medication, hm?"

Bones clicked off the sets. "They dinnit mention no Batman, boss. You wanted Batman there and they--"

"--wouldn't dare leave out part of my demands," Joker finished Bones' sentence for him. "If I am disappointed in even the slightest of my demands, then the good doctor and I have a last bit of nastiness for Gotham...a virus program that will be dumped on the city at midnight. This little germ of ours would plague the city for years! Batman will play delivery boy or I will see Gotham City a ghost town! Oh yes."

* * *

I'm on a roof in a blizzard again. Commissioner Gordon's on the CB. I've got my remote for the truck. I think I'm set. I sure as heck better be. 

"He's given us the exchange point, Robin. It's East Harbor Bridge," Gordon's voice comes through the communicator. "The Joker wants the truck in the center of the span."

"Keep your men away from there, Commissioner. I can handle this end. But keep them ready to move when they get that call."

"I have SWAT teams stationed all over the city and we have the traces set up."

"Okay."

There's a pause as I wait for Gordon to yank this whole thing out of my hands once again. "Good luck, son."

Well. Maybe he does trust me.

"Thanks, sir."

Now to get in touch with Alfred.

"Robin to Operator One. We have the drop-off. Are you situated?"

"Certainly. Not much competition for public telephones tonight."

"Let's get started. Just get on line and run that program. It'll run on every e-mail and interactive public system. I figure The Joker has Pellinger monitoring all of them. He's at the center of The Joker's whole scheme."

"It's running."

"As soon as you get a response, phone Gordon on the cellular and give him the payphone number. They'll trace the call from the phone company and then locate The Joker's mainframe."

"Before you go, sir. I just wanted you to know that I know the pressure you're under, and that I doubt Batman could have done any better than you have done."

I'm suddenly feeling a bit more confident.

"Coming from you that means a lot, Alfred. I only hope I've done enough."

I push the antenna in and snap the plastic case closed around the communicator. Then I extend the antenna on the remote control and click it on. The red indicator light comes on. I can see the smoke rising from the truck's exhaust pipes and I could actually hear it start, even though I'm several buildings away. The snow sure does quiet down the city. I move the gear to drive and the rig starts rolling. This is a bit more complicated than the remote control cars I played with as a kid. My remote is set up almost exactly like the truck controls are. It has a little steering wheel, a gas lever and a brake lever that work almost like the pedals do, a gear shift switch, and a few buttons for lights, wipers, things like that for realism.

I drive the rig as far as I can see, then I idle it and swing over a few more buildings, then drive it a little farther. It's slow going with how icy it is down there. I already heard the tires spin once. But that was about seven brakes ago, and I think I've got the hang of it. This is a little treacherous. Keep it slow.

I can see the bridge. The truck is approaching it now. I slow her down. We're getting more than the foot of snow that the weatherman promised. The big rig would be hard enough for me to handle on dry roads. Just my luck.

There, it's in the middle of the span. Gear down and apply the air brakes evenly. Don't want to jackknife here.

Now the worst part. The waiting. Praying the remote control unit linked to the truck doesn't jam.

I can see the truck clearly from my perch. And I can see Batman behind the wheel. Hm. I'm almost convinced, myself.

* * *

The giant clown face had a clock for a nose, and it read 11:27pm. Beneath the face was the pyramid of monitors, but only one was lit. Dr. Osgood Pellinger was lashed to the chair in front of the bottom center monitor, humming mindlessly. The screen blanked and the status checks he was running disappeared. The screen began assembling, slowly at first, pixel by pixel, a picture of a dog. The assembly quickened and the picture was complete. Osgood had stopped humming. 

"Pixie?" Osgood croaked. It was the first word he'd spoken in days and days. "Good girl..."

* * *

"My kingdom for a steaming cup of Earl Grey..." Alfred muttered, shivering in the cramped phone booth on the corner of 65th and Lex. He'd already had to switch telephones three times and he hoped this was the last. His socks were wet and cold, and the bottoms of his pants legs were frozen solid. His wool cap was doing him no good at all and he wasn't certain if his gloves were making his fingers warmer or colder. And this booth didn't even have a door. Ripped off by hoodlums, I suppose. 

Then Alfred's laptop screen began scrolling. "Hello?"

"Where are you, Pixie? Come here, girl. Good girl. Come to Ozzie."

Alfred grabbed the phone from the van. "Commissioner...it worked. Doctor Pellinger responded to the image of his childhood pet. I have a response. The payphone number is 555-2008. He's still online. Hurry and you'll catch him."

Alfred hung up. The only thing he had allowed the Commissioner to say was "Yes, this is Gordon." The less he was on the phone with Gordon, the slimmer the chance he would be recognized as the same voice that answered the telephone at Wayne Manor. Now it was time to go home and wait for Master Tim to contact him with good news.

* * *

"Five squad, this is the Commissioner. The target house is in your sector. The number is registered to the Jack Of All Trades Employment Agency. Ninth and Diamond Streets. Be careful. The Joker's had weeks to set up traps." 

Before he could finish speaking, trucks with flashing red and blue lights were rolling all over the city, silent as the snow.

* * *

"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" The Joker screeched as a fleet of snowmobiles roared across the frozen surface of the river beneath the bridge. 

"Is the tr-tr-truck up there, Boss?" Bones, driving the snowmobile Joker was standing on the back of, chattered with cold and fear. Batman could be up there.

"Lester's been watching the bridge all night. He said someone drove it up and parked it and hasn't moved from the cab ...THAR she blows!" Joker pointed. "And it's a pretty red one just like I asked for! Let's see if I got all my Christmas wishes." Joker held out his hand as Bones skidded to a halt just a quarter of a mile from the bridge. Bones reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of binoculars. Joker focused them on the bridge. There, sitting in the cab of the red truck, The Joker saw Batman waiting. "Hoo hoo! So the Birdbrained Boy wasn't left by his lonesome after all!" Joker handed the binoculars back to Bones. "Now it's time for Mister Batty to go bye-bye. He gets to ride ten sticks of dynamite into Gotham Harbour!" Joker pulled out a radio-detonator.

"But," Bones whined, "what if there really is a billion dollars in that truck?"

"Tax deduction," The Joker's grin wasn't disappearing. "Business expense. It would be worth a trillion dollars to know that Batman is finally dead!" Joker pressed the button and the bridge exploded. Actually, to say "exploded" was to euphamise. The bridge erupted with the power of a star gone nova. Robin swung unseen off the roof of a nearby building. "See you on the other side, Long Ears! Wouldn't it be just perfect if Boy Blunder were in there, too? I'd kill two Birdboys with one stone! Ha!"

Burning paper began to rain down on Joker and his men. "See, Bones? Newspaper. Just piles of smoldering newsprint. The city is flat broke, just as I told you.

"Batman" fell to the ground in a comet's tail of flame not far from The Joker. "Oh, this is too lovely!" Joker ran over to the burning figure. "I actually get to see Batman shuffle off to his final reward! So choice! So apropos!"

* * *

It has to be now. Now before The Joker gets too close. Now while they're still surprised. Now while they're off balance. 

Now while I still have the guts.

* * *

"No..." Joker saw the burning face... of a dummy. A grinning plastic face that was not Batman at all. Time seemed to stop, everything moved in slow motion. His victory party had been ruined. And now it was about to be crashed.

* * *

My knees connect with the center of The Joker's back, just under his ribcage. I've knocked the wind out of him. He crashes to the snow. His men are closing on me. I gain my footing and extend my bo. I take out one semi-automatic rifle and one .38. 

I feel a chill that has nothing to do with the cold. It's fear. I'm riding it -- using the adrenaline rush that it's giving me.

One swing of the bo takes one man up, one man down.

_I've dreaded this moment, facing The Joker and his gang. But now that it's here --_

I pull the metal R off my costume and hurl it. It stabs into the hand of a sturdy, bearded blond man with a handgun. He drops it.

_-- it feels right._

"All my wonderful plans... my sublime machinations... it wasn't supposed to go like this... Batman was supposed to die..." Joker jumps up and starts running. The man beneath my foot is stirring. My bo connects with his temple and he's down for the count. Now I'm after The Joker. He's heading upriver into the city. I can't lose him now. If he escapes, this starts all over again.

I jump on a snowmobile and start after him. The jerk's got ice skates. I should have known...

I'm closing on him. I can hear him yelling something.

"Jingle bells! Batman smells! Robin laid an egg! The Batmobile lost its wheel and The Joker got away!"

I hate that song.

"Jingle bells! Robin smells! Batman's gone away! It'll be a merry Christmas 'cause The Joker's here to stay!"

Not if I can help it. Though I must admit I've never heard that version.

He's headed for the city sewage treatment plant. I can hear him cackling madly. Do I have him on the run, or am I being suckered? Not that it makes any difference. Once I catch up with him, it'll be the same fight.

I jump off the snowmobile and follow him up the ramp to the top of the tanks. I could think of much less foul-smelling places in which I would rather fight The Joker, but I don't think a change of venue is something The Joker would agree to.

The steam from the waste tank hides him. He could be anywhere.

It's perfectly silent. I'm holding my bo defensively. I hope he can't see that.

"_Ungh_!" suddenly I get a knee in the center of my back, exactly the move I'd just used on The Joker, and I fall on my stomach.

"You know, I always though the robin was supposed to be the first sign of Spring!"

"_Uff!_" he kicks me in the ribs and I teeter dangerously at the edge of the tank.

"Looks like this little birdy got here a tad early! Doesn't it?" He kneels down straddling me, pinning me to the deck, and clamps his right hand around my throat. "Batman's going to have to get choosier with his next sidekick," he jerks my head. I have one tight fist around his wrist, the other on a handful of his long scarf. "Their lifespans get shorter each time." I try flipping him over my head by lifting my legs, but he pins my leg down with his shin. It doesn't help that he's much taller than me, if not heavier. "The last Robin couldn't have been seventeen." He pulls back his left hand like he's going to punch me, but instead he pulls my hand away from his scarf and switches his grip on my throat to his left hand. "You don't look fourteen! You may set the record," two blades project from his bunny mitten on his right hand, "for the shortest lifespan of them all!"

Now he goes for the punch, but with two long blades pointing from his glove. I grab his arm and try to divert his punch from the center of my face. I succeed. It gets me across the shoulder instead. It cuts through my Kevlar cape and tunic, and my skin. Lose the pain. Keep my mind on my next move.

The thrust put him off balance. Now I can kick him forward. Over my head. Into the sewage tank. And down he goes.

"_**AAAAAGGHHHHH!!**_!"

I roll over on my left arm, conscious of the pain in my right shoulder, and stare down at The Joker flailing in raw sewage. How often would I get this opportunity? I know there's a snappy line I could say here. Some remark to humiliate The Joker even more than he already is. Something in the "Dick Grayson" style. Or in my own style...

I'm just too tired to think of one right now. I pull myself up on the railing on the opposite side of the deck.

The cops show.

"Is he here? Did you get him?"

I've wanted to say this for two weeks: "I got him."

Men in blue are swarming around me. I grip one of them by the shoulders. "Dr. Pellinger? Did you find him?"

"Tactical has a location. They're rolling on it. They should be on the scene by now."

* * *

"FREEZE!!!!" the SWAT team burst through the doors of Joker's hideout.

"Pixie... good girl... come to Ozzie..." Pellinger was barely conscious.

"At ease, guys. He's not going anywhere. This is what we've been looking for. But I don't know what to make of it..."

"Good girl... C'mon girl..."

"Isn't there supposed to be traps here or something?"

"No time for that. I say we just waste the whole thing. Lock and load," he rolled Dr. Pellinger's chair away from the system.

"...Pixie?"

Automatic gunfire shattered the relative quiet Pellinger had been living in for two weeks. And the system was destroyed.

It's over.

* * *


	15. Homecoming

ROBIN and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © DC Comics 2004. Story by Chuck Dixon, novella adaptation by Ice Spectre.

Rated PG

* * *

"**TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY" - Homecoming**

The fire is blazing. It's a big one this time. Alfred and I deserve it. I'm in the big, overstuffed chair wrapped in a blanket. I'm warm. And dry. It's better than I remembered.

"I have several herb teas here," Alfred stood in front of me with a silver tray, "which would you prefer?"

"I don't need to be babied, Alfie. You were out in the cold, too." This man doesn't take a break.

"I wasn't exposed to that beastly weather as long as yourself, Tim. The police stopped whatever awfulness The Joker had prepared for the city."

"And how is Dr. Pellinger?" I hadn't stuck around to find out how he was. I came straight home. Alfred hands me a cup of apple-cinnamon tea. It smells like Christmas.

"He's in a sorry state, the television news reports. But he'll recover soon enough to help unravel all the bother he's created."

Yes, but it wasn't his fault. It was The Joker's. Who's back in Arkham.

"We beat him, didn't we?" I smile wearily up at Alfred. Gotta get him a costume...

"We most certainly did that. Master Bruce will be most pleased when he hears of it."

The door in the wall of glass windows clicks open and a swirl of black enters surrounded by a flurry of snowflakes. The door closes and a shadow turns, revealing a yellow oval with a black bat in the center of the silhouette of blackness.

"Whoa..."

"Hear about what?" Batman asks.

* * *

"Here's a good one," The Riddler's voice echoes from his cell. "If The Joker had no nose, how would he smell?" 

"Shut up, Eddie," The Joker's voice came from the cell next to it.

"Terrible!" Edward Nygma answered himself.

Two-Face laughed as he flipped his coin. Other laughs echoed down the corridor, a corridor filled with Penguin, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Scarecrow, Firefly, Mister Freeze, Clayface, Ventriloquist and Scarface, The Mad Hatter, Maxie Zeus, and dozens of other villains that Batman and Robin have faced time and again, and defeated.

"He's mine..." The Joker hissed. "The little bird is mine. Do you hear me? None of you touch him! He's The Joker's property from now on!"

A cold sweat broke out on Joker's stark white face and his green hair hung in damp strands around his face. His arms were locked tightly around his body in a straight-jacket.

"And this time he'll stay dead."

**THE END**

* * *

_Author's Post-note: Thank you to EVERYONE who followed the story for your support, both written and unspoken. My side-trip into the Bat-Verse has been GREAT fun!_


End file.
